DrMike2000

Twin Empathy/Energy Defenders
Sonic/Energy Defender + PeaceBringer
Twin Fire/Rad Controllers
Dark/Rad Defender + Fire/NRG Blaster

These are no dreams though!!
This is my life!!! (well, my virtual one...)

I've always though Singularity with Disruption Field would look incredibly cool, and yet be incredibly useless.

You have my deepest sympathies.

Nice work. I like the different star ratings for team and solo - very important for Sonic Resonance.

Good survey, PK, and much respect for posting this.

May I link to some similar research from the Controller forum?

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=142748

Enant's figures basically showed poor defender retention into the 40s - that up until then they were kind of almost holding their 20% share.
One possible explanation is that the 40s is where Controllers start edging into Defenders last bit of territory with AoE damage in their epic pools. Also, by 40 everyone has access to all primary/secondary powers, compared to the 30s where only defenders have Fulcrum Shift, Adrenalin Boost and other goodies like that.

This suggests it isnt quite as bad as the 40s suggest for levelling Defenders, but the end game is where they suffer the most.

I still wouldn't say no to a damage bump, of course

Yep. A -Res debuff acts like a multiplier to base damage because of this.

eg a 30% Res debuff will always make you do 1.3 times as much damage as you would do without any Res debuffs applied.

I agree that interchangability with Corrupters will probably cause a drop in Defender numbers.

Masterminds and Controllers both play differently enough for me to still roll Defenders - since most of my character concepts fight by themselves rather than using an elemental proxy or bunch of lackeys to do so.
Corrupters fill this role nicely though, and offer a cool inherent and better damage. And I'm sure they will get Force Fields eventually.

I dont think that the relative numbers of each archetype matter though.

What does matter is the Defender population drops, how will the remaining die-hards be seen? Shunned on teams for their low damage, or welcomed for their support focussed attitude? I reckon option B myself. It's more common to find a team that could use some more support than one that could use some more damage.

A sample solo Empath/Energy build for what we have right now.
Any Empath can do something like this with the dual build system and still retain a team-friendly other build. Use the fact you only take 3 primary powers to your advantage and take pool powers to boost your defence.

1 Healing Aura (9)(9)(17) - 4 Heal/End or Heal/Rech IOs
1 Power Bolt (3)(5)(7)(17)(23) - Thunderstrike set
2 Power Blast (3)(5)(7)(15)(23) - Thunderstrike set
4 Energy Torrent - single accuracy, used for knockback on groups.
6 Hover (33)(33) - Blessing of the Zephyr set
8 Boxing
10 Power Burst (11)(11)(13)(13)(15) - Thunderstrike set
12 Swift
14 Tough - Steadfast Res/Def IO
16 Health
18 Recovery Aura (19)(19) - Recharge
20 Stamina
22 Fly
24 Weave (25)(25)(29)(29)(31) - Red Fortune
26 Regen Aura (27)(27) - Recharge
28 Manouvers (31)(31)(33)(34)(34) - Red Fortune
30 Aim
32 Power Push or Snipe?
35 Explosive Blast
38 Nova....

You get 19.1% Defence to everything from Manouvers, Weave, Hover and the Steadfast IO.
Set Bonuses make that 38% vs Ranged, 22% vs AoE, 35% vs Energy and Negative.
Two purple pills cap your defence to everything for EB fights.

Tough can be turned on while Recovery Aura is running, or if you're facing high burst damage, but is mainly there for the Steadfast IO and more defence.

The only expensive IOs are the Blessing of the Zephyr set and the Steadfast IO. Drop the BotZ if you cant afford it. Each +Def Io will add +0.5% defence, Maybe one of them and two flight speeds?
The Steadfast IO is yours for only 125 Merits, easily obtainable by doing story arcs, and well worth getting.

Between your high defence, spot healing and +Regen for tough fights, and knockback (or other defensive secondary effects) you should be Ok to survive, as long as you pick your fights.
eg Warriors are bad news with mainly smashing and lethal melee attacks. CoT with lots of ranged attacks and negative energy are easier to fight.

I do TOs and DOs as I go through the single digits and teens.

Some select powers which are just crying out for slotting in multiple areas get an upgrade at level 17, eg Dark Regeneration would get some level 20 End/Rech's. Armour toggles often get Def/End or Res/End frankenslotting if I can be bothered.

Yin O's may happen if Ive bought some earlier and put them in the SG base bins.

Sometimes at 17 I'll slot a bunch of level 20 IOs too if I've made them and they're in my base.

Level 22 I usually replace evrything with SO's.

Level 27 I start slotting sets, at this point the level 30 good stuff like Thunderstrike, Red Fortune and Crushing Impact open up, and I'll usually have bought and prepared sets beforehand. This makes 27 a big leap in performance just like 22 was - eg most Blasters or Defenders will suddenly gain +6% Recovery, +11.25% E/N/Ranged Def and +21% Accuracy as well as +55% Rech/End/Acc on their main powers instead of +33% due to the magic of Thunderstrikes.

From there on I buy more sets, filling in other stuff with either IOs or SOs depending on availability and convenience.

Global Recharge bonuses are the go here.
Empathy has great buffs with long recharges, the faster you can get Fortitude, Adrenalin Boost and the two Auras up again the better support you can provide.

Accuracy bonuses, Recovery and personal Defence arent going to do much if you don't attack, which is your choice if you should choose to do so. I feel the need to point out you'd be a better Defender with some attacks, if you know this already and are not choosing attacks for concept reason, then good luck to you playing how you want to.

Have a look here:

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category...prove_Recharge

Doctored Wounds (5 pieces) in any healing power gives you +5% recharge, so stick that in Healing Aura, Heal other, Absorb Pain, Regen Aura and wherever else it can go.

Red Fortune goes into Manouvers and Fortitude for +5% but be aware you can only get 5 bonuses of each type, eg the sixth +5% Recharge will do nothing.

Even if you choose to go down the path of never attacking for concept reasons, it may be worth picking up some powers from your secondary for use as "set mules". eg if you have Dark Blast, any power can take four pieces of Cloud Senses for the +6.25% Recharge bonus to make your Empathy buffs come up faster.

The best way to get hold of these enhancements is to buy the recipes and ingredients through the market at Wentworths.

Sonic Resonance is one of the worse sets to solo, in my experience. I tried soloing a Sonic/Energy Defender and gave up in the 20s, I just felt like a weak blaster with few bonuses from my primary.

You get:

- Sonic Siphon, against anything less than a boss, you probably save yourself one attack by lowering the res of the target, so its not a great time or endurance saver. It works much better on teams. 1/5 for soloing, scores higher on teams.
- Sonic Cage, handy for when you get in over your head. 2/5 for soloing
- Sonic Dispersion, pretty good, its mez protection and 24% res when slotted to all but psychic. 5/5 for soloing
- Liquefy, you need to wait till 32 and its on a 5 minute timer, but its good. Great for the end of level boss when soloing radio missions. 2/5 for soloing.
- 5 other powers you cant use without an ally.

So your entire primary really gives you mes, protection, 24% resistance and a couple of situational powers. Thats not a lot. You're outputting 65% of the damage you could be on a blaster (less counting the loss of Build Up and secondary attacks from a Blaster), and taking 75% of the damage you would without Sonic Dispersion, so you're much less effective than a Blaster at taking down the enemy before they take you down.
Sonic/Sonic will do OK because Sonic Blast is that good - high damage and control, but it could be paired with a better primary for more effect.

Force Fields on the other hand gives you PFF, knockback tools that can bounce a boss indefinitely and personal Defence that can be boosted via set bonuses to very high levels (see the guide in my signature).

I'd agree with Emperor Steele and suggest FF/Sonic. The powers match in terms of look -both are colourless and ripply looking. I played one to 50 and could solo Invincible easily by the early 20s.

FF/Energy is kind of redundant in that both sets give you all the knockback you could want.

Kick gave me one of my most satisfying in-game moments of the past few weeks. I was streetsweeping in Peregrine Island, kicked a Fake Nemesis, and he went flying, landed on the bonnet of a car on his back with his legs splayed.

Don't tell me thats not impressive!

I actually really like the animation for Kick. Its not flashy, but its very contemptuous. But, if they were to offer say the Thunder Kick animation from Martial Arts as an alternative animation somewhere down the line, that would be a good thing too, as that would suit some characters more than others.

Pretty much anything works with Sonic - its the highest damage secondary and has good control and safety too.

Sonic, Force Fields and Cold all scale up well to big teams with their "dish out the buffs every four minutes and then blast" style.

For task forces, Cold probably comes out top due to its powerful non-perma debuffs that can cripple an AV.

I really like the sound of this.

Comparing Elec Armour to Fire Armour now, Elec is now looking pretty good.

Elec gets
- slightly more S/L resistance
- a poorer heal, but it increases recovery
- end drain resistance, one of the late game bugbears for Fire Armour
- Psi resistance, another late game bugbear of Fire Armour
- a negative hole instead of a cold hole, cold being associated with -Recharge that messes with healing Flames made this a problem for Fire tankers.
- slightly wonky KB protection in Grounded
- Lightning Reflexes.

Fire Gets
- Burn
- Fiery Embrace, especially good if you take Fire secondary
- Better healing

Both tier 9's are a bit on the undesirable side, one's pre-suicide, the other's post-suicide

So Fire will still output more damage and heal better, but Elec gets a good few perks, and tackles most of Fire's weak points very nicely.

I16 will also see us able to recolour either set, making the cosmetic differences even less. If you were dead set on some kind of flaming man concept but wanted Electrical Armour, you could probably pull it off.

Having said all that, I'm planning a Fire Tanker and an Electric Armour Scrapper. I dopnt think Fire Armour will get edged out completely, but it sounds like its got a contender on it shands now.

[Edit] I should consider Dark Armour too, I guess, the three sets have similar heal/resistance/damage aura setups.
Dark I guess still has its niche with the two mez auras as a Tanktroller rather than Scranker build.

I'm with Lemur here.

My Kin/Elec lived on a knife's edge from one Transfusion to the next. You could sap a single target like a boss using Transference and Short Circuit if you got the drop on them, but you'd be waiting for the second Short Circuit to be up before sapping his buddies. And until then all it took was a single mez to ruin your day.

It was fun, definitely, but it wasnt safe.

On top of that, your best damage mitigation kicks in at 26 (Transference) and 28 (Tesla Cage). You'd be lucky to get there without dying in this "one life" challenge.

I totally agree with your choice of Sonic/Rad Defender.

You have very little in the way of "get out of my face" emergency powers - 25% knockback chance in Electron Haze, and maybe Sonic Cage, if you take it.

If your health starts falling on this character, there's pretty much nothing you can do about it except cross your fingers and fight, or run.

You could always buy the Ethereal Shift temporary power and totally defeat the point of this exercise..

Interesting idea, and a subject close to my heart.

I've been a Force Fielder tank, not as tough as a real Tanker, but capped Ranged, AoE and Psi Defence, about 38% vs Melee and 60-odd v% S/L resistance.

I've currently got a Dark Armour tanker who's concept revolves around a personal force field.

I'm trying to think how I'd design a set to represent a Force Field tanker like Captain Britain in the early Moore/Davis run and Dave Thorpe's work that preceded it.

Obviously the first priority for the set is to provide lots of defence to the user. I'd go from there to remain consistent with the Defender set by not providing a self heal or any Resistance, but add extra mitigation and a bit of damage via knockback.

1 Deflection Shield - 16% Def vs S/L/Melee, self only
1 Insulation Shield - 16% Def vs F/C/E/N/Ranged/AoE, End Drain resist, self only
2 Force Bolt - as per the Defender power, fast recharge, KB, small damage. This version also taunts
6 Dispersion Bubble - 10% Def vs All, immobilise, Hold and Stun protection, extends over teammates in 15ft radius.
8 Detention Field - why not? Every set has skippable powers, and giving this to a Tanker seems kind of unique. Maybe give it melee range just to be different.
12 Passive Power -Sleep and KB protection, Defence Debuff protection of maybe 40%
18 Repulsion Bomb, 30 second recharge Knockdown and 40% chance of stun PBAoE, scalar 0.5 damage in 15 ft radius
26 Force Bubble - like the Defender power, repel and occasional knockback with added taunt. This is your aggro aura, with a difference. Maybe make the radius a little smaller, or just learn to pulse it.
32 Personal Force Field - cross between PFF and Hibernate - you cannot be hurt, can still move, cant interact with others, but +100% Regen and +100% Recovery while its turned on. 120 second recharge toggle.

Slotted you have 41% Defence slotted (16% vs Psi from Dispersion) and moderate defence debuffs, low enough for you to worry in the presence of Earth Thorn Casters, for example. This would make it worth exceeding the Defence cap by adding in Weave or set bonuses.
No Resistance or self heal, just some mild +Regen in PFF at the end.
You get additional mitigation via KB, and provide some team cover, and get bonus damage from your primary. You get a little bit of range with Force Bolt.

Most importantly, it would be great to have a tintable (in I16) humanoid force field that animates around your body rather than just a sphere.

An alternative I used once was to stick a Roman II at the end. I then retconned a reference to a WW II version of my character being the original, so this contemporary one was the second in line. This is more legible than a period and gives an in character reason for the II being there.
Usually I'll try to come up with an alternative name, but sometimes the name is just right on many levels and you dont want to change it.

This made it feel kind of like a Official Handboook of the Marvel Universe entry, where they used roman numeral suffixes to distinguish between the various green Goblins or whatever hero or villain mantle changes user over time.

For Kinetics, yeah.

Sonic or Force Fields, in contrast, are much less nuke friendly - nuking can lead to half your team suddenly being stunned or held when Dispersion drops, and you have no powers for recovering your endurance quickly.