DrMike2000

There was a "King of the Defenders" thread a while back, where people here voted between pairs of Defenders suggested by the forumgoers.

Storm/Ice came out on top for the most wins, and for the longest streak of consecutive wins - basically no-one could think of a pairing that clearly trumped it. Storm/Ice has the lot - raw power, versatility, good solo or on teams, thematically good pairing between power sets and different enough from the usual FotM suspects to be cool.

Since that thread I've taken one to 50 and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Looking over your build, I'd suggest 3 damage IOs or equivalent in Blizzard and other attacks, and three recharge IOs in Freezing Rain. I know you're going to hit the ED cap, but two level 50 IOs will only give you +84% Damage/Recharge and you could have close to 100%.

Single target damage is lacking due to lack of a heavy hitter like Blaze or Power Burst.
In its place Electrical Blast gets Voltaic Sentinel, which provides nice damage over time but poor burst damage.

AoE damage is standard, unless you slot Short Circuit for end mod instead of damage.

The secondary, Endurance Modification, is a bit off in my opinion. The only power that drains significant amounts of End is Short Circuit (apart from the nuke). The three ways to use the secondary effect are:

Elec/Elec - use Short Circuit and Power Sink to drain entire mobs of their end from level 35 onwards
Elec/Energy - use Power Boost and Short Circuit to almost drain a group in one hit from level 28 on, finish off with Ball Lightning and single target blasts. This used to work much better a few issues ago until Power Boost was nerfed.
Elec/anything. Use Short Circuit twice. Its got a base 20 sec recharge, with slotting for recharge and end mod you can neuter any group in around 10 seconds.

All three techniques require slotting Short Circuit for end mod first, and losing a bit of AoE damage as a result.

On the upside, Tesla Cage is an absolutely brilliant hold for a Blaster.

Elec and Energy secondaries are good pairings because they provide some good melee damage to make up for the poor ranged damage. I found both sets play like Dominators - neutrlaise from range and then bring them down quickly once its safe to close to melee.

For a Controller, Sonic cuts incoming damage down to about 58% of what it would be otherwise

Force Field will drop incoming damage to about 40% of what it would be.

Force Field's damage mitigation can be sidestepped by things like Earth Thorn Caster's Quicksands or Devouring earth Quartz's, Sonic's generally can't be bypassed as easily.

Sonic provides no mitigation against Psi, but FF provides global Psi defence in Dispersion bubble, and the bubbles protect against Defedner style Psi attacks like the Lost and Carnie Ringmistress use (but not Mind Control style attacks Like rikti and Illusionists use).

Force Field also provides big End Drain resistance (86% or so) in Insulation Shield - not an inconsiderable factor at all in the 40s with Malta and Carnies everywhere.

So against Carnies in particular, FF wins all-round by providing mez protection (unlike Cold), Psi Defence (unlike Sonic) and End Drain resistance (unlike either).
But it does so at the expense of any offensive buffs or useful stuff like Benumb and Heat Loss.

Stimulant is a great idea.
Darkest Night and Radiation Infection are two of the few toggles that drop when mezzed, and both have non-trivial recharge. You wont want to use it all the time, but there will be cases where it will save your bacon, eg mezzing Elite bosses who you really want to keep Darkest Night on.

I had a lot of fun hero-side with a Fire/Energy blaster and Dark/Rad Blast Defender, thers a certain overlap here that suggests that this pairing should work well.

Check out the dual-boxing link in my sig for some binds and software to help control two
characters, by the way.

BTW I've found Sonic Resonance to be a great back-seat set - the only power requiring a mouse click is Liquefy. Pairing with a brute... nice!

Yeah, definitely slot your single target immobilise as an attack. It lasts 29 seconds and recharges in 4s, so dont even think of putting immobilise enhancers in there.

Your hold, its up to you. I've had solo controllers who do just that, the base duration is over 20s, so you dont need hold enhancements as much as a dominator did.

Plant will do decent AoE damage.
Carrion Creepers helps quite a bit.
Your AoE immobilise does twice the damage of all other controller ones, to the point where its worth slotting for damage, especially when Containment gets factored in. You can also stick Trap of the Hunter and Positrons Blast damage proc IOs in there for cheap damage proc spamming.
And then Seeds of COnfusion helps speed things up.

You'll be at your best against large groups of lower level enemies, and the new difficulty settings allow you to do just this.

For reference, Accelerate Metabolism offers +216.25% mez resistance.

You're right - the piddly little single digits from set bonuses aren't noticeable at all.

Glad to hear things are picking up.

My 2c on Enervating Field:

Resistance debuffs increase your total damage (ie base and enhancement values) by the amount stated, so putting EF on a target makes you do 22.5% more damage. It also sucks twice as much endurance as Radiation Infection and takes a second or so to cast, so gains in both damage per endurance and damage per second are negated a bit by these factors.

If you're soloing and facing anything less than a boss, it may not be worth it. I found this on my Mind/Rad controller and often couldnt be bothered activating EF for really run of the mill PVE content.

On a team its gold though, since it amplifies everyone else's Fireballs, KO Blows and Full Autos and so on..

Do I hear my ears burning?

I'm dont think there's anything special I can add to this, its hard to go wrong with an Empathy duo to be honest.

I had Healing Aura and Heal Other and Rez. I didn't have Hasten, which is a mistake. I had Hover and Flight and Recall Friend (because I was new to dual boxing, and it helped to be able to summon my other half when they got stuck on a cave wall). And I ran Assault and Manouvers. I drew the line at Tactics because I was getting the benefits from mutual Fortitude and Clear Mind.

Thunderstrike sets in my attacks, Red Fortune in Fortitude and that was about it for sets. Its been a while since I played them...

One point to clarify, BalleRyan. I use dual-boxing to refer to one player controlling two characters using keystroke broadcasting software, you're talking about playing with a friend. Dual-boxing my way generally means that you play each character a bit worse than you would if you weren't trying to split your attention, but in the case of a mutual buffing its actually a big advantage. No need to communicate or cooordinate, just press the button and both characters will use Fortitude or AB or whatever on each other.

I also alternated auras e.g. O-Man would have Regen and Recovery in slots 7 and 8, O-Woman would have Recovery and Regen in slots 7 and 8, ie the other way round. This way, either key press (7 or 8) would bring up one of each aura, and you could have both of them effectively permanent.

I totally agree.

My Empathy duo are the most powerful characters I've ever played.

You can see where these people were coming from - as you say, Empathy attracts its fair share of bad players. Its just a shame they chose to extrapolate this to all Empaths. People spout all sorts of opinions about the game like they were facts, its usually just best to ignore it when they do.

In Champions, when a character grows, how do they handle the physics?

In CoH currently (and nearly every game I've ever played), each character is pretty much trated as a single vertical cyilindrical capsule. If they got too big, you'd get the problem oif another character looking like they should be able to run between their legs, but cant without a more refined physics model (eg one capsule per limb and one for the body). This is more expensive in CPU time, of course.

If you grow the character and dont refine their physics, they also get really good at blocking doorways, which is bad for an MMO and can lead to all sorts of griefing.

So:

- Can you run between a giant characters legs in Champions?
- If not, can they block another player into a confined space anywhere?

Till then, as said before, grab the Science Booster Pack and you can at least have a 8 foot tall version of your character as an extra costume.

Sorry, I should have read your last build more thoroughly.

You dont have Propel, this is really one of the defining points of Gravity Control, especially solo. (The others are Wormhole and Singulairty)

Its the highest damage Controller attack of all, and also the best damage-per-endurance attacks, which helps a lot when solo. Its main drawback is that its slow to activate, but if your enemies are held and you're on your own, this doesn't matter too much.

I can dig if you dont wnat to take it for concept reasons - Dr Strange never threw a toilet, forklift, coffin or insulation bale at someone, after all.

Without Propel, you're basically fighting with your single target hold and immob for damage, which is the unenviable position that Earth and Ice find themselves in.

So I'd say either get Propel (replace Crushing Field or GDF) or re-roll as Illusion.

My apologies for not spotting this earlier.

My Sonic/Mental Blaster took Drain Psyche and no Fitness.

I had end problems up until level 27, when I could finally slot Thunderstrike sets to get Recovery Set bonuses. Once I'd got four of them, and 3 Positrons Blast pairs for a total of +15.5% Recovery, I was doing OK with just Drain Psyche.

So I'd say you can skip Stamina if you're willing to invest in IOs and put up with some unnecessary discomfort in your 20s. That's two medium sized ifs.

Dont try the Defender version. Thay'll be far more frustrating to play than a Controller one, partly because the toggle will run around everywhere. The damage wont be heaps better.

Don't write off Controllers until you've got Stamina. They suffer from very poor damage per endurance (propel being one of the better powers for this), and Stamina eases this a lot.
Soloing Controllers, i found that I often spend the last half of a fight in my teens with a fuill health bar and empty end bar, refreshing holds on the last few targets. Its no fun, but once you get Stamina, you've turned a big corner.

Never slot an immobilise power (single or area) for immobilise - they last 30 seconds out of the box and refresh in far less time. Dont slot Crushing Field much at all, slot Crush for damage over all else.

Get Radiation Infection ASAP.



You may have already got this, so forgive me if I'm preaching to the converted:
Controllers need to juggle. A Scrapper of Blaster works best focussing on each enemy in sequence, taking them down one by one. A Controller is best swapping targets all the time. Once youve held a bad guy, he isnt going anywhere for 20 seconds or so, so switch targets and hold someone else rather than whittle him down like a Scrapper would. If face dwith 3 minions solo, i usually deisgnate one as the "damage bearer", hold the other two as quickly as I can, and just occasionally refresh holds on them while the "damage bearer" goes down. Then nominate whoever has fewer HP left as the next damage bearer, and repeat.

Oh, and never use Propel if containment isnt set up.

Gravity/Rad sounds pretty much perfect to me.

Phase Shift can be dropped in favour of the Ethereal Shift invention recipe power, if you want to save 3 powers.

The downsides to this are:
1) using it makes you intangible (and unable to affect others) for a minute at a time - not a big deal if you solo, but on team you can get effectively stuck in the phantom Zone helplessly watching your allies die.
2) it only has five charges - but not too bad that your Doc Strange guy has to check in to the university every now and then to refresh a spell.

Add in the Phase Power available from a patrol mission in Warburg (30 minutes of temp power phase toggle) when you hit 30 and you really can skip the concelament pool.

Invisibility can be replaced with a stealth IO in one of the temporary sprint powers if you have the influence.

I'd try the following rough build:

1 Crush - 6 slot as an attack ie - damage, acc, recharge and end. Do not slot for immobilise.
2 Radiant Aura
4 Gravity Distortion - 6 slot for acc, hold and recharge
6 Radiation infection - 2 end reduction, maybe a to hit debuff or two.
8 Propel - 6 slot as an attack
10 Hover
12 Recall Friend or TP Foe
14 Teleport
16 Swift
18 Health
20 Stamina
22 Accelerate Metabolism - 3 recharge
24 Enervating Field - 2 end reductions
26 Wormhole - 6 slot recharge, acc and stun duration
28 Choking Cloud - end reduction and hold
30 Gravity Distoprtion Field maybe?
32 Singularity - 3 damage, 1 acc

For bosses. Pop Radiation Infection on them and apply Gravity Distrotion twice as quickly as possible. They should have a 6 second or so window to hurt you at highly reduced to hit values - things dont look god for them!

For melee attacks - dont get any pool powers. Use Sands of Mu vet power with Rad Infection dropping the Defence enought o hit relaibly.

You will never solo like a Scrapper.
You'll be slower with your damage output, and prone to being jumped by surprised attacks. But any battle your start on your own terms should be easy to handle. Ideally fight small numbers of higher level foes so you have to throw out fewer controls. Hitting them isn't an issue because Radiation Infection will severely debuff their defence.

If your build is way different from what ive laid out, I'd urge you to try one more respec along these lines and give it a fair go.

I've got a couple more Stamina free characters to 50 recently, a PeaceBringer and a Psi/Mental Blaster.

The thing is that they were both able to slot for about +20% recovery via set bonuses (Thunderstrike and Posi's Blast) and had an auxiliary end tool available if required. (Nova Form and Drain Psyche)

An Elec/SR Scrapper would be much harder - no extra end tools and your best bet for slotting +Rec would be piddly 1%'s from Bruising Blow or Cleaving Blow, which dont offer much else.

Maybe go for +Endurance bonuses too? Eradications about your best bet there for PBAoEs

Its still doable, so go for it. Stamina often gets a bit overrated because it kicks in around the same time as SO enhancements, so its accompanied by an increase in effectiveness of end redux slotting and greater damage for better DPE.

The Atlas Medallion Accolade for +5% End will help, that can be acquired by your mid 20s usually.

I really like playing my Fire/Energy Blaster with Rise of the Phoenix.
So yeah, I guess I'd play it. Exploding when you die rather than when you rez would be pretty cool.

Blind Rage should have self damage rather than -Defence. The defence debuff would expose you to more to hit and damage debuffs just by virtue of being hit more often, which goes against the set. There'd be no fun in beserking in the middle of a bunch of ghosts you couldnt hit.

I'd have said yes to this a few years back, NeoBlayde, when it seemed like getting ot level 38 was way beyond my reach.

These days, I've been playing for 3 and a bit years, and have 16 level 50s I think, and to tell the truth, I'm kind of running our of powersets.

I haven't played Cold Domination, or Trick Arrow too much. Dual Blades probably has some uniqueness to offer me with its combo system, umm.. probably never will try Stone Armour, havent got an Illusionist to high levels yet. Theres quite a lot of villains stuff for me to explore still I guess, but I am running out.

If I'd been able to double up with most character I'd have loved this at the time, but burnt through the available content (and by that I mean playstyles for characters rather than misions) so much more quickly. I'd have paid the devs less money to do so, as has been pointed out, but I'd also probably not be playing still.

I've used dual builds once so far, to give one of my characters Ice and Fire powers through the Controller epics, and mostly just stuck to one build out of laziness.

Your idea is kind of cool in terms of backstory for some characters, but I've seen plenty of people do this by re-rolling their character from scratch with new powersets.


In short, new content can be consumed much more easily than it can be made. A new task force or story arc gets gulped down in hours, but each power set can last 100s of hours. I'm happy to keep it this way.

Apart from the name, the Leadership toggles don't have anything to do with leading a team.

Its like assuming that all superstrength characters are angry because they use a power called Rage.

When people talk about sets being underpowered, they don't mean they're useless.

Since the games been out for 5 years or so and tweaked over 16 issues, it would be surprising if any set has only 50% as effective as another. Maybe 80% or 90% as effective, but there aren't any huge outliers anymore.

When I first played Gravity Control, for example, I was amazed at the single target hold because I'd played Blasters before. With just a few DO's I was holding multiple targets easily. All through my career I pulled off amazing feats of control, or so I thought, because this was my first Controller. I've since played Plant and Fire, and reckon they both rip through content more quickly. I'd say Gravity underperforms, but I dont feel weak or useless on my Gravity Controller when I go back and play her. I'm too busy revelling in the cool factor of throwing furniture, teleporting bad guys en masse and generally beating the crap out of everything with one of the fundamental forces of the universe.

On the main topic - my main experience with Mind Control is Villain Side on small teams. I'd say Mind definitely underperforms in that little niche due to the lack of a pet against all the EB's I faced.

What would a cold-shielded Singularity look like?

Would the shield be humanoid, or would it look more like Tanker Icicles? Or nothing?

I may have to make a level 1 Coldy just to try this out...

Of course he flies. I was thinking of Jumpin' Jehosaphat!

For guides, try the Defender forum for empathy advice. Do read Psyonico's "Who to buff as an Empath" guide though. Its in the sticky post at the top of this forum under Secondaries, and gives some very good tips.

I dont have Mids handy, but a rough build would be...

1 Healing Aura (5)(5)(7)(13) - recharge, end and heal. 5 Doctored Wounds gives +5% Recharge
1 Crush (15)(17)(17)(19)(19) - slot for damage. 6 Thunderstrikes is nice.
2 Gravity Distortion (3)(3)(7)(13)(15) - 2 Acc,2 Hold, 2 Recharge, or Hold, rech + 4 * Acc/Hold/Rech IOs
4 Absorb Pain/Heal Other* (34)(36)(37) - Healing and recharge I guess
6 Swift
8 Propel (9)(9)(11)(11)(21) - Damage mainly. 6 Thunderstrikes again.
10 Resurrect
12 Hover
14 Fly
16 Clear Mind
18 Health
20 Stamina (21) - End Mod
22 Fortitude (23)(23)(25)(25) 3 rech and 3 Def, can get equivalent by Frankenslotting IOs.
24 Assault ** (34) - 2 End
26 Wormhole (27)(27)(31)(31)(31) - 2 acc, 2 rech, 2 stun or rech, stun + 4 *acc/rech/stun Ios
28 Recovery Aura (29)(29) - 3 rech
30 Tactics ** - oops forgot! Slot for end redux first
32 Singularity (33)(33)(33) - 1 acc 3 dam. Recharge doesnt matter - he rarely dies.
35 Regen Aura (36)(36)(37)(37) - Doctored wounds * 5, focussing on rehcarge then heal.
38 Adrenalin Boost

* Absorb Pain is great pre-Stamina for its low end cost. Later on, respec into Heal Other - its weaker heal but much shorter recharge and you wont damage yourself.
** maybe swap one of these out for Hasten. Youve got a lot of long recharge powers (Auras, Adrenalin Boost, Fortitude, Wormhole) that really benefit form this.


If you like, swap the Thunderstrike sets in Propel and Crush for Decimation, for the +6.25% recharge bonus. recharge is king on this build.
Ive slotted Heal Other very late for your concept, so fix as necessary. I'm kind of viewing soloability here, and slotting up your damage attacks.

Always establish containment before using Propel, either with Crush or Gravity Distortion. You want to double that damage, considering the 3.5 second activation on it.

The word "healer" tends to inflame people a bit round here, Doc. As long as you're aware that empaths buff (or bless or anoint) as well as heal, you'll be fine.

Anyway, I ran a Grav/Emp to 50. Solo'd often and teamed and loved the combo.

Gravity's main problem is that your bread and butter area control comes late (Wormhole at 26) and when it does it has a bit of knockback associated with it, which can lead to people asking you not to use it one teams. Incorrectly in my opinion, but they will do that.
That aside, Gravity is a really fun powerset. Propel is fun because you throw random stuf at people. Wormhole is fun because you get to teleport mobs around as you stun them. Standing inside Singularity while mobs try to melee you is fun. It's probably the least effective set for tearing through PvE content, but its maybe 80% as effective as Illusion or Fire rather than 50% as effective, so dont worry too much about it coming last.
You'll control well and do decent single target damage for a Controller. After playing a Blaster, the saftey provided by my single target hold had me in awe.

As for running a Controller Empath instead of a Defender Empath, your powers are typically around 88% effective as a Defender. You get them later, but other than that a Controller can make for very good team support.
Add in Leadership for some extra buffage - I ran Tactics and Assault on my Grav/Emp. Fortitude gives bigger bonuses to the chosen few, and is an absolute must have, but Leadership will spread bonuses to the whole team, including yourself and your pet.

You could reasonably get by with just Crush, Gravity Distortion, Propel, Wormhole and Singularity from Gravity and not miss much. That leaves room for 8 Empath powers (skip Absorb Pain), Travel Power and pre-requisite, Fitness and 3 Leadership powers.

One question - what travel power does Our Lord use, just out of curiosity?