Cobra_Man

Everyone will have their own opinion on certain powers.

Only thing I'll say on the matter is this. An Illusion Controller without Deceive would be a challenge.

It's a wonderful power to have - particularly when used correctly.

I tip my hat to those Ill trollers who managed to get by without it.

As Cognito says, neither is better - but the sets have different ways of being effective.

Probably the main difference between Rad/Rad and Dark/Dark is that Dark/Dark concentrates on debuffing one particular thing - Accuracy - and Rad/Rad is perhaps a little more versatile.

Mind you once a well slotted Dark/Dark Defender - played correctly - gets going your team will really, really benefit from it.

The level of Accuracy debuffs from the set is simply awesome and if you add in a very strong Heal (second strongest in the game) and great control qualities you have a very effective powerset.

The only thing I would disagree with from Cognito's post is the statement about /Rad having the edge in control.

I would have to say that Dark/Dark has more control qualities.

The attack chain below will lock down and debuff a mob very nicely indeed

Fearsome Stare - Tar Patch - Tenebrous Tentacles - Darkest Night

However ... as Cognito says /Rad (Lingering Radiation) with it's -Regen is excellent for fighting AV's, which are littered right through level 40 to 50.

Dark Miasma also has -Regen, with Twilight Grasp, but it's not as strong as Lingering Radiation's.

What I would say is that whichever of the 2 sets you actually choose, you will be highly effective in a team situation.

Just my opinion but a fix for this is to reduce the level of the Heavies and perhaps the turrets as well.

Also ... make the Heavies non-buffable.

Fixed. Next?

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Ok, ive been away for around 2 years, just come back recently and in the past couple of days i got a Ice/Storm Controller too 20. I am enjoying it, but not greatly.I Love the Holds but controller doesnt seem to be my thing.
So im planning on building a Defender but a bit puzzled on what Power sets to go for. Ive kind of cut it down too a Few sets, the sets are:

Dark/Dark
Dark/Elec
Kin/Elec

Now, im just wondering which set you lot think works best and why.

Thanks.

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I think it all really depends on what your playstyle is.

Playing a Kinetic you will be constantly buffing/debuffing and moving in and out of the mobs (to be as effective as possible). Most of the Kin set's powers are highly visible and your team will love Speed Boost and Fulcrum Shift.

Basically Kins get a lot of attention and are always well received in teams if played well.


Playing a Dark/Dark Defender, you will need to adopt a different approach and attitude. Most of the powers have a lower visibility factor but are very powerful indeed.

With a Dark/Dark Def you will be able to cancel out entire mobs with a few of powers.

My Dark/Dark Def's main attack chain was as follows;

Fearsome Stare - Tar Patch - Darkest Night - Tenebrous Tentacles - Nightfall

Those 5 powers (particularly the 1st 3) enabled me to turn entire angry mobs into jelly.

Such is the power of the Dark Side that you can be the Team Tank, if needed

I'm basing the above on my experiences with taking a Controller Kinetic (Ill/Kin) and a Dark/Def to 50.

Whilst I know the playing a Def Kinetic is slightly different from a Controller one, the basics of Kinetics are the same.

The bottom line IMHO is that both Kinetic and Dark sets are extremely powerful - when used well - but as a Kinetic you will get noticed more and it does mature a lot quicker than Dark.

I really enjoyed playing both, for the different reasons as outlined.

My advice? Roll one of each

My thanks for the replies. Kin/Rad certainly looks to be a fun set indeed

I had a look for a thread on Kin/Rad Defenders but didn't have much joy.

Does anyone have any experiences to share on this set, or even a build I can have a look at?

I rolled one to see what it was like and it very quickly got to level 10 - and had fun along the way

I have a 50 Ill/Kin Controller, so i'm familiar with the Kinetic set but not the combination of Kin/Rad.

I intend to use it for team work only, as I almost never solo.

Any feedback would be helpful.

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Okay, thanks for the reply friends.

It seems Ill/Kin is a better option. I will use 4 power pool sets. Fitness, Medic, Fighting and Flight. So i think this will cover the lack of healing. As i can use self-heal in PFF this makes sense i guess.

I had a Mind/Empath troller but deleted her. She's really good but in lower levels, without a raptor pack she can't stay alive in hollows or other hazard zones. But i think i can give it a shot, i mean an ill/kin troller. Or make it mind/kin. As only ATs i like are Defender and Controller there are still so many combinations for me to try.

Actually my brother's asking me to start together again with new characters on Saturday, i'll try ill/kin or mind/kin. As he loves to play Blasters, i think someone have to keep him alive. XD

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As stated you wont need the Medic pool. Transfusion is the most powerful heal in the game.

If your brother is wanting you to duo wuth his Blaster, you need to find out if he prefers ranged or close in Blapping.

The Kinetic heal favours melee players as the heal is generated from the target mob.

If it's ranged tactics he uses then something like a Dark/Dark Defender, Illusion/Empath or even an Ice or Fire Tank would be helpful for him.

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I made a Ill/FF last night for soloing. Is it good for soloing? I thought Decieve + Phantom Army + PFF + Invisibility is a good combination for soloing.

Or in other words, can he be more succesfull than my FF/Psi defender in solo?

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Try an Illusion/Kinetic Controller. For solo purposes it is really effective - as well as being great for teams, if you get tired of soloing.

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You live and work in a city where half the population fly, shoot rays from their fingertips, turn invisible and grow spikes from their bodies instantly and you'd be surprised if a turret got up and ran off? Sheesh!


And yes Cobra_Man, thats exactly what I meant, the annoying one or two who run away from PBAoE's and take just that extra shot or two to clean up. Hence, scatter effect.

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Ok, I'm with you now. I thought you meant the whole mob scattered when they met Blazing Aura.

I would have to agree here.

An Illusionist without Decieve would be missing out on a very useful power.

I used Decieve from level one all the way up to Fifty and found it to be a brilliant power, with many uses.

I was using my Fire/Fire Blaster all day yesterday and took a close look at mob reaction to Blazing Aura. The problem is that the minions basically don't last long enough for me to see any movement away from BA.

This was in a team of 6-8 players most of the day.

One thing I would say is that I have seen some (1 or 2) of the mobs try and do a runner from most of the Fire AoE powers. Not all the time but sometimes. Perhaps you're seeing this with BA?

I can't really comment on other Blaster AoE powers, though.

Has anyone else seen anything like this, in Fire or other Blaster sets?

I've never seen Blazing Aura cause the mobs to run away.

It normally causes the mobs to turn their attention on you - if no Tanker is about.

I can doubly confirm that both Combustion and Blazing Aura do not cause mobs to scatter.

I'm running both on my Fire/Fire Blaster (Lev 46) at the moment - to great effect.

Those figures look about right and to be honest don't offer much to mitigate the damage.

I took Aid Self to stay alive on my Fire/Fire Blaster and have found it to be very, very useful - even more so now with PFF from the Force Mastery set.

Congratulations are in order for Phantom Lal, who dinged 50 this afternoon.

Sources close to Lal have indicated that this is Lal's ninth 50.

Officials at the Lal HQ neither confirmed or denied this, merely issuing the following statement...

"WOOB!!!!! 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50"

You don't say but I'm assuming your Ill/Storm?

Having Recall friend is indeed good to have, particularly in some of the later missions that you mentioned.

I actually respecced Recall out of my build (by accident ) around level 43 and really missed it a lot - until I managed to get it back.

One last thing and I'm not being picky but the next new power comes at level 35, not 34.

Hope that helps.

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Agree: Even the "Room of Death" isn't that tough if there's communication.


[/ QUOTE ]That depends, "Let's go melee the mobs in the center" counts as communication as well

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I saw that trick done during the week. A Scrapper decided not to wait and ran straight into the centre mob of the 'Room of Death'.

I have to admit, I've never seen a character die quite as quickly as that before

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The rest of the team should be paying attention and thinking.

If they die cos they are chatting to "my bezzie" then i dont care if they whine about debt etc.

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So ... if you had your way the team Tank would be saying nothing about their intentions on how they plan to deal with a mob?

Ok. Picture this, if you will.

A team of 8, doing a portal mish set to invincible in Peregrine Island - for example the Anti-Matter AV mission.

Rooms jam packed full of +2/+3 mobs, in a crey lab setting full of blind corners, small alcoves and maybe even the dreaded 'Room of Death' to contend with.

The team Tank isn't communicating with his team.

Do you follow the Tank, when it runs around a corner towards a mob or 2?

Or ... do you wait and assume that the mobs will be brought back to some point in your general vicinity?

Without any word from the Tank, I can see a scenario like that being a recipe for a team wipe at some point in the mission as the you run after the Tank, only to meet it coming back with an angry mob after him.

With a single bind, such as "Herding to here", any confusion, uncertainty issues etc are easily dispelled.

I'm struggling to see how such an easy system is causing annoyance.

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I would personally get annoyed at you. You seem to think the people you are teaming with are blithering idiots who are blind thus not being able to see the screen.

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"pulling to here behind this corner"
"inc mobs to here behind box"
"boss, charging in"


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Yes ok we can see that also, congratulations on learning how to waste time by typing.


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The first one is needed, in my opinion - "pulling to here behind this corner" - or something like it.

Doing that will prevent any confusion for the rest of the team.

If I don't see anything like that, I assume that the Tank is simply going to run into the mob, grab aggro and stay where he/she is.

I have a 50 Scrapper and a 31 Tanker.

I have to say that as a scrapper (or any other AT for that matter) I like knowing where the Tank is going to take the mobs to and more importantly that they are actually herding and not waiting for the rest of the team to go to his/her position.

The only bind I use, when playing my Tank is this;

"Herding to here"

I have found some Stone Tanks to be a bit ... excessive with the binds but thats just down to the individuals that are playing them.

I've also noticed that some Stone Tanks even insist on herding single mobs, that have no other mobs around them, which I find a bit pointless and tiresome.

What actually annoys me is when a Scrapper (it normally is a Scrapper) jumps in too early and fragments the herd.

Bottom line is by all means let the team know whats going on but don't use 10 binds when one will suffice and don't go into herding auto pilot when a simple TP in and hold aggro wil do.

My parting point is ... Stone Tanks with Granite Armour and no TP travel power. As an Ill/Kin Controller I actually avoided teaming with Stone Tanks eventually.

I once got an invite to a team with no less than 3 Stone Tanks - all without TP - all with Granite Armour and all wanting Speed Boost even before it ran out.

I think I lasted almost 15 minutes in that team

I took Flame mastery on my Fire Blaster .. and took Bonfire as first pick.

I have to say I'm delighted with it. The best use I've found for it, so far, is to position it at your feet - just at the range you're going to throw your heavy stuff at the mobs.

Once Bonfire is lit, with you in the middle of it, fire off your attack chain as normal. The inevtable response from (surviving) melee based enemies is to charge right at you - seeing as Fire generates a great deal of aggro.

With Bonfire active, they can't get to you. You can then pick them off or deal with any ranged enemies first, or even leave the Bonfire have a few blaps and go back into it to avoid excessive retaliation.

I also found the less sturdy members of my team were liking this as well and happily stood next to me - on the Bonfire patch.

I certainly wouldn't activate it in the middle of my target mob. As OVWyx rightly says, thats no use for an AoE based powerset.

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Make freinds, only team with them... only use right powers in right team... etc etc...

Id whine on, but the depressing truth is your right...

*Sigh*


I still refuse to take aid self on any toon other than my ice tank, tho.

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Aid Self has saved me on numerous occasions when playing my Fire Blaster. It's the only powerset I've ever taken it on but was basically forced to respec it in, due to the amount of aggro I was generating.

All joking aside, if I was teaming regularly with an experienced team I probably wouldn't need it but I tend not to on that character.

My playstyle isn't to hang back at range - I mix range attacks and blaps - and found that as the enemy threat increased so did my faceplants.

Having Aid Self and Acrobatics allows me to keep on dishing out damage when I used to have to withdraw from the fight or die.

I also like having the self support that Aid Self gives me, rather than having to rely on others to 'heal' me.

Each to their own really but it's a great power to have for a mad, squishy Blapper

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See this attitude gets me a bit upset.

Theres this really effective thing in CoX that will really make you t3h ub3r 1337.

Its called teamwork.

Thats right!

My dominator teams with a fire brute often. I can tell you that when timed right, an AoE immob followed by burn makes Hit points vanish at a truly collosal rate. Would I use burn without an immob or at least a heavy slow? no, I wouldnt.

I wonder what it would be like with a fire blaster standing next to an ice tank on top of said ice patch with a chilling embrace slotted for slow?... Burn, Hot feet, Blazing Aura running, with Combustion and FSC? Maybe a consume to keep end up and add a little more damage?

Seriously, we dont see burn used at all these days because everyone thinks it gimped. But put it with someone else you team with who can immob and it rocks. YOu dont see it often because people avoid Burn and avoid AoE Immob... because...

A lot of it is to do with "no aggro on me, thankyou"... If everyone stopped worrying about aggro and we all took AoE powers, CoX would become seriously unbalanced IMO. And anyways, what are tanks for?

Aid Self? why waste two powers and more slots on getting this when you should be teaming with somebody else who can heal you or protect you from getting damage in the first place?

Free you mind!

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It goes without saying that if a team has an Ice Tanker with Ice Patch then the incoming damage to the less sturdy AT's will be significantly reduced.

It also the case that teaming is great and is indeed the best way to get ahead in CoX (imho).

Being a Fire/Fire Blaster (level 38 at the moment) it would be great to have the following team like this

Ice/Ice Tanker
Ice/Rad Controller
Kin/Elec Defender
Spines/Regen Scrapper
Empathy/Psi Defender
Fire/Kin Controller
MA/SR Scrapper

and

Me .. Fire/Fire Blaster


Absolutely brilliant. If I can keep that team - or even something like it - with me at all times then I'll get to 50 again with ease.

I'll even respec out Aid Self and Acrobatics and put Burn/Hot Feet back in and stand right beside the Tanker at all times.

I wish I'd thought of this teaming thing earlier

I have to agree. They look great but just got me killed far too much.

It's risky enough getting close enough to use FSC and Combustion, which are worth taking.

Use the slots for Acrobatics and Aid Self instead. That way you can stay on your feet and give your green bar a nice boost every now and again - with the added bonus of maintaining a high DPS rate.

Ok .. I just read through the whole thread.

My view on this is based on having 2 Blasters at the moment - Level 38 Fire/Fire and Level 29 EB/EM - as well as trying several other Blaster sets up to around Level 20.

The Defiance inherent power - in PvE - is not useless but is certainly far too situational to be of regular assistance when compared to most of the other inherents.

This is particularly relevant from level 20 up.

My vote for a change to Defiance would have to go to simply raising the point where Defiance kicks in and raise the Damage and Accuracy buff, so that it becomes useful without being almost dead.

The obvious change here is to include Accuracy as part of Defiance and to make it more user friendly more often.

The start point for Defiance to kick in and the revised scale would have to worked out but should work alright - with minimal change. This would allow Blasters to remain at a more reasonable lower Health level if they wanted to tap into their inherent.