Estarriol_EU

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where Regen has to have it double-stacked to hit the cap... this means when a SR is at the cap they will have slightly more time to use more damaging attacks.

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True, but with IO sets and careful slotting, DA can be both excellent defence and a reasonable attack.

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True, I use EMP Arrow as an opener on my Grav/TA rather than as a panic button which is why I love it so much, I use EMP as a panic button on my Fire/Rad, which is why I don't.

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*nod* I can certainly see why Grav/ would need EMP as an opener and Fire wouldn't...

Hmm... make that DoT poison ticks. It would make sense to me for toxophilists to be using toxins...

Thanks Carnifax, Cynic. When I was trying to find other apples to compare to the TA powers, I noticed that there's often overlap, but generally other defender sets seem to get a better deal (e.g. Darkest Night compares very favourably to Poison Gas Arrow IMO, Tar Patch is better than either Glue or Disruption). I appreciate it's not always as simple as the numbers make out, as you've pointed out, but overall I'm not noticing much "bang" to TA.

It does indeed appear to be a top-heavy set... personally those [censored] me off, I think all sets should have two of their three best powers in the first 12 levels, 18 at the outside... and most sets do follow that pattern.

It does also seem to suffer the "Kinetics Syndrome" of having better synergy with Controlling powers than Blasting powers.

And finally, it does look like a large part of my problem is the underperformance of /Archery, which has an increasingly meaningless secondary bonus in the world of Inventions Sets. If it were given a better secondary effect (-ToHit due to having arrows interfering with your fighting, or even DoT bleeding ticks) I think it would be a much more competitive set overall - a great Tier 9 power doesn't make up for the basic lack of a secondary effect and almost-exclusive lethal damage.

I did consider TA/Rad for the lighting ease and overall awesomeness of /Rad, but I wanted to play a "True Natural" character (no real travel power, all skill and equipment based).

Lots of thinking to do. Thanks for all the replies.

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TA is all about debuffs, either -dam res, -recharge, - speed or -def. it's a bit like Dark in that it doesn't directly affect the team, but makes them much more able to despatch the mobs. Kin is all empowering the team, TA is about depowering the bad guys. If you want to protect your team then i'd say TA isn't really for you, there's basically nothing that can have a direct effect on your teammates. I picked aid other cos I wanted aid self. Apart from that I have nothing that does anything to the team itself.

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To be clear, by "protect", I don't mean "buff" or "heal". A Dark Defender protects their team by debuffing enemies, and would be viable without Twilight Grasp because of the large (and more-or-less always up) -Damage and -ToHit.

Carnifax - which powers are you comparing to when you state that TA powers recharge quicker than other powers? As far as I can see, Glue recharges quicker than Tar Patch, but lasts less long (they both have a 2:1 recharge/duration ratio). It also recharges slower than similar powers from other sets (Quicksand, Caltrops). Acid has no very similar power - Sonic Siphon would be the closest and recharges slightly faster, although as a single-target vs small AoE I would expect that. Disruption Arrow again has no direct equivalent that I can think of off the top of my head, but there are similar large AoE -Res powers available near-permanently without additional slots (Disruption Field, EF).

I'm playing Devil's Advocate because this is the first time in a long time that a set has mystified me somewhat... I'd rather find a groove I can enjoy for my TA/A than delete her.

So, would you say it's fair to conclude that the strength of TA is in making enemies easier to kill, rather than in protecting the team?

Perhaps that's what I'm missing - I generally expect Defenders to have a decent capability to protect themselves and others. Perhaps I'm expecting too much in that regard, having played Rad, Dark, Kin, Empathy and Storm defenders. If I thought "team-oriented Offender" perhaps I'd get more mileage?

I'm pretty surprised because I've not had any problems soloing any other type of defender (I can't really comment on Empathy, as the one I have is a complete non-fighter) - they all seem to have debuffs or self-heals/buffs that are easily sufficient to solo.

I think it's fair to say that all Defenders are better in teams. I've never seen anything solo as badly as TA/A. I haven't done a serious analysis of the numbers compared to other Defender sets, but their debuffs generally appear to be weaker than other Defender debuffing sets. I'm a massive believer that players often underestimate powers that are commonly considered bad, but TA just seems weak even to me.

I don't want a soloable TA as much as parity in power with other apples (Defender sets).

Castle, do you consider Trick Arrow to be WAI and generally of a comparable power level to other Defender sets? Having played lots of defenders to a reasonable level, I'm finding my Level 14 Trick Arrows/Archery Defender to be surprisingly incapable. Any comment?

I just respecced into Force Bubble on my Grav/FF controller and my first thought was how good it would be with an AOE-based defender with corner-crowding.

I'd probably take Dark or Rad - neither has awesome damage, but Rad has 3 worthwhile AoEs and Dark has 2 very large cones and more safety (I don't consider Torrent to be worth much, personally).

I'm very surprised that anything reasonable is holding you through OG + Acro. How many of what were you fighting at the same time?

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I hope the thing about dropping squid form at 22 was directed solely at PBs, because nobody should ever advise anybody to drop the WS squid form.

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I wholeheartedly agree.

In addition to the above factors, PBs have powerful melee attacks which overall make the damage on their Human form viable. The damage output of a WS Squid is so overwhelmingly higher than a WS Human that it's never - IMO - a good idea to drop the WS Squid if doing damage is a priority for you.

Having played both, I'd suggest that which to play first will depend on the player. Many will wisely suggest PB, since overall they're more straightforward and pretty much a Jack-of-all-trades.

However, here are some questions to help you:-

Do you prefer straightforward hack-and-slash, or having more "crafy" powers that have to be used well to be effective? If the former, favour PB, latter = WS.

Do you enjoy having your power come from yourself, or do you like attacks that steal from enemies? Former: PB, Latter: WS.

Are you happy to be weaker for half your career to be more powerful for the second half? If so: WS, otherwise PB.

Switching forms takes a few seconds of inactivity. Are you happy to be switching forms mid-combat repeatedly for the highest effectiveness, or would you prefer to not have to switch forms much so that you have a simpler life? Former: WS, latter: PB.

Do you like having pets? Yes: WS. No: PB.

Do you prefer the secondary effect of Slow, or -Def? Former : WS, latter: PB.

All IMO of course.

This is a tough decision that I'm trying to make now for my L30 PB. The 3 forms really suck slots, and I'm thinking of reducing down to 2 forms (Human/Dwarf), which would save me 1 power and 7 slots.

I found as everyone does at first that Nova form was amazing ... but as the levels have gone on, I'm finding my damage output in Human form increasing, and I'm gaining more useful auxiliary powers in Human form. Just through natural play I'm finding that I Squid less often, whereas Lobster is still very useful for additional survivability - with Lobster, the human shields and heals and Quantum Flight, survivability is very good.

I also have a mid-20s Warshade; as the levels go on I'm getting more controllery in Human form, but lack the damage output the PB Human form has; my optimal damage for a WS appears to be double-mire then Squid. So I can see that my WS is likely to remain tri-form, whereas I'll probably drop the Squid form on my PB (or take it again in my 40s just for flexibility).

One other little tidbit about Hover - it's really, really nice when Speed Boosted and noticeably faster with Accelerate Metabolism. Given that Kinetics and Rad seem to be quite common at high levels, it's worth bearing this in mind.

"Team Friendly" to me doesn't mean AoE - other ATs do AoE so much better than a Stalker ever could. For me, Team Friendly for a Stalker means being more Scrapperish than many Stalkers are (i.e. taking on powerful enemies one-on-one) and trying to use powers that debuff many enemies.

On that note, I'd probably go for Kat/Ninj due to Divine Avalanche being a very good "I'm standing in your face" power, with Claws/Ninj a second due to Focus having the fast knockdown benefit. Ninjitsu secondary is very flexible and has Caltrops and Blinding Powder, both of which are very team-friendly.

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Also how are you slotting hover/pff etc?

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Hover - Well, I've respecced for an Inventions-heavy build so have 4 slots in it right now (at level 39), looking for the Freebird set (with Stealth IO) plus an additional flight speed. You want all the flight speed you can get in Hover - at least an 80% bonus if you can. For a Grav/FF I wouldn't be using it for defence unless you were after procs or set bonuses, as it's more efficient to slot up Dispersion Bubble for this purpose.

PFF - I currently have 1 Endurance Reduction, 2 Defence. Many folks don't believe in slotting this power. I do, because I use it quite a lot and notice the difference. I always use this with Dispersion Bubble as PFF doesn't stop mezzes (and I think it should).

For invention sets, concentrate first on the rarer effects you have - in this case Stun for sure. Defence, healing and so forth are very popular and tend to be expensive and hard to get as a result, but you can relatively easily get a full set of Stun enhancers. I tend to go for the best uncommon set rather than rares, with a view to upgrading to the rare sets as a long-term goal (if they're better). You might be able to 6-slot an uncommon set for say a million or two, whereas 6-slotting a rare set could easily cost 10 million or more. It's much more effective for your character to use the uncommon sets firsts.

Some that might be of interest... wow, that's a huge subject that is guideworthy just in itself. However some tips for good bang-for-buck sets:-

Fly - Soaring (although Freebird is the rare set I'm going for first, for the stealth). With Soaring in Hover and Fly, you can easily get 2% recovery bonus and 1.5% Health, which are great bang-for-buck.

Stun (in Wormhole) - Several interesting possibilities. Stagger is very easy to put together, and 2.5% Recharge Bonus is tempting, but for optimal use of the power combined with nice set bonuses, I might go for the 2 Rares in Stupefy that use Tech (conveniently Accuracy/Recharge and Acc/Stun/Recharge), and 3 from Rope-a-Dope (including Stun/Range and Recharge ones). If I were to 6-slot, I'd probably pull the Stun/Range from another set... Range is very useful in Wormhole.

Holds - I don't like the sets for Hold. GWE has very nice bonuses but of course it's a rare and extremely expensive set to put together. EOC has mediocre set bonuses for this character IMO. I think I'll go Paralytic and possibly dabble in the Ranged Damage sets (although they're very popular and thus can be hard to get hold of). My tip for anyone who's not totally hardcore when it comes to getting IO sets is to remember to optimise the power percentages primarily - there's nothing wrong with getting no set bonuses due to mix-and-matching sets if the benefits to the power outweigh the possible set bonuses.

Immobilize - A good early target (not many people buy them), although tricky to balance with power effectiveness if you're using Crush for damage as I am. I like Enfeebled Operation a lot, although I expect it to become expensive and highly-desired as Crushing Impact and Thunderstrike have been. Simply compare the set bonuses for Enfeebled Op and Rooting Grasp and take the one you feel works best for you - I think both have strong arguments.

Defense - Again assuming you're not spending millions on proc sets, I think Serendipity and Red Fortune are both great sets. I've gone Serendipity in my single-target bubbles as I don't expect to give them many slots, and Red Fortune is a late bloomer - I am considering 5 Red Fortune's in my Dispersion Bubble though, as I like the 5% Recharge time there.

I would try hard to get the Knockback Protection from Karma for Dispersion Bubble though... that would close a defensive hole in Grav/FF and is genuinely worth millions.

Oh, I don't disagree that Aid Self adds more to survivability than Health, but that's not the comparison I'm making. Do bear in mind that Health can be taken on the way to Stamina and thus could be seen as "free", whilst Aid Self is 2 powers.

For a flying /FF character, I rate Health over Hurdle - I've tried both through several respecs. I love extra movement, but when you're floating all the time, Hurdle does nothing. Hurdle also takes no IO sets, whilst Health takes the excellent Heal sets... this in itself is a big deal if you're the Inventions type. Regardless, being able to take an extra hit every 10 seconds is a big deal, especially when you have relatively good self-defence.

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Health is kind of a waste on trollers, if you get it dont waste any slot on it.

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I've found it very useful on my Grav/FF, due to lockdown powers and good personal defence, and I wouldn't consider it a "waste" on controllers generally. Non-devices/cold blasters are probably the least optimal users of Health on the Hero side IMO, as they have the least capability to slow the fight down on average. The longer you can make fights draw out, the more optimal Health is... and Controllers are excellent at drawing out fights, Grav/FF especially. In addition to that, Health is a great target for some of the set bonuses and procs in the IO sets.

Luciora - Aid Self is a dynamite power for Grav/FF; the ability to PFF and heal yourself while your Singy holds aggro adds measurably to your overall ability. I respecced into Aid Self about a year ago and I'd never go back now. That same character also has Health, and Swift for the flight bonus.

As for travel powers and knockback, I'd really advise the flight pool for Grav/FF, and I wouldn't bother with getting Acrobatics for -Knockback. A well-slotted Hover can move fairly fast and grants "soft immunity" to Knockback, and furthermore can be slotted with nice bonuses from Defence sets. Hover and Combat Jumping provide comparable defence, and you don't need the immob protection from CJ or the Hold protection from Acrobatics due to Dispersion Bubble. Dispersion Bubble can also be slotted with the Knockback Protection IO from the Karma set, which I consider to be the optimal place to put it.

You can have pool powers from up to 4 pools - but as many as you like from each pool.

All the tactics Carnifax are suggesting are good, and part of my basic arsenal. Grav/FF is slow but *safe*; my Grav/FF controller can survive situations that few of my other characters, even tankers, could survive. The foundations of this safety are Dispersion, PFF and Singularity - everything else adds onto that in my experience.

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The only "acceptable" slotting of a nuke is 3 Damage 3 Recharge reduction.

Hooray for ED...where every player is now the same

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I'm amazed we're still getting posts like this post-Inventions.

Clearly, there are other good ways to slot that 3 Rech/3 Dam, and those will vary depending on what you're trying to do with the character.

Pre-ED there was "standard" slotting for everything too. ED didn't change that - Inventions did.

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Cone attacks/PBAoE: Thunderstrike

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Thunderstrike is a ranged set - not usable for Cones (which are targetted AoE) or PBAoEs.

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Just commenting on Steampunk - for me, Dull pains usually a heal power, well, thats how i use it, and i use it first instead of reconstruct- so if i have to heal in a fight, ill get the bonus health

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I'll "me too" this. Dull Pain is a level on my DEFCON ladder higher than Reconstruction, I hold it back for when I need a big heal and a boosted regen rate.

The only situation I'd use it pre-fight is if I think I'm going to have trouble surviving the Alpha; in everyday terms I usually use it mid-fight as and when I need to.

I wouldn't sacrifice the 2 power slots for it. If something can put me in deep trouble despite DA, Reconstruction, Dull Pain, Instant Healing, MoG and Hasten, good luck to them - that's something I'd only expect a Tanker to handle... and few situations reach that level. Losing 2 powers for more survivability isn't my playstyle; I'd rather be hitting things.

I have however taken Resilience, as it's only one power slot and no endurance, and the Toxic resists are a big bonus given the amount of poison Arachnos tosses around. Some people like it for the Stun protection. If I didn't have Resilience, I'd be tempted to take Tough. Resilience is much maligned, but I think it's a decent power.

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Personally I'd only take 2 out of Propel, Crush and Lift. Along with Grav distort they fill my attack chain pretty well. I went with Crush and Propel for huge contained damage and because I love Propels animation but the animation time is a pain, especially on teams.

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I agree with all this. Personally I think Lift underperforms. Crush is an excellent damage power.

Oh, and I'll add #5 - it's very good for soloing in hazard zones!

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Salt Crystals are great! if, you know, no one on the team uses AoEs.

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1) It's a 14% (from memory) defense debuff in a big AoE.
2) It's not a bad panic button if a second group gets aggroed.
3) It's a huge AoE and will often keep stragglers slept even with fireballs going off.
4) Not every single high-level team is Mass AoE Death Chaos. OK, 90% of them are, but that other 10% finds a good use for powers like this.

Salt Crystals are worth their salt.