Evilmeister

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... but Vigilance is just going to irritate the hell out of me...

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It probably won't, since you'll never notice it's there.

Heh, difficult question. Some definitely memorable moments as a defender at heart, not necessarily the player behind the keyboard.

- Encountered a lowbie dark miasma/electrical blast defender in Hollows on my main, way back when the zone was a pain to travel through. I used to run through the area and use radiation infection, enervating field and mutation if needed. We chatted a little after she mopped up a group that had been pounding her badly before I had helped out with some debuffs. She had only used Twilight grasp so far, but understood the concept of a debuffing set like Dark miasma quickly after seeing what -ToHit could do for survivability firsthand and we kept in touch sporadically. Some weeks later, she sent me a tell asking to join her for a mission - I accepted, and she just said "Wait here, I want to show you something."

This taking place a long time before IO's, aggro-cap and nerfing of -ToHit-enhancements, she herded the map with Darkest night and obliterated what came in range. Afterwards, she turned around to me and said "See? Debuffs are great, just as you said." I couldn't help but smile a broad smile, seeing how she had embraced and mastered the debuff-part of being a defender.

- Similarily, at another time I played a suicidal blaster in a supergroup team. During defiance 1.0, and I did love to defiance-surf at orange to red health to get the extra damage my electrical blaster sorely needed for her AoE. Circle of Thorns-mission, packed with Earth thorn casters and the -Defence autohit in Quicksand. Having defence-based melee on the team together with the stuns from the Stalagmites, this quickly became a nightmare.

Of course, teammates offered to relog and mentioned some alts, one of which being a dark defender. I quickly suggested that'd be the best option over the otherwise suggested empath. Between fearsome stare and darkest night, even my maniac blaster made it through fairly safely for the remainder of the mission.

- Finishing Master of Statesman TF in the first attempt with something as rare as a competent empath. Being mostly players that knew eachother from beforehand, most just took whatever character they needed the badge on for fun to see if it'd be possible and what'd be missing. The empath stayed on top of things throughout the whole thing and didn't miss any critical buffs, ultimately being a huge enabler for a weird team that got the Master of Statesman-badge on the first attempt together.

So many other times I've had amazing defender teammates that should be brought up, but I've ranted long enough. For me personally, any of those times my friends have borrowed my main character for a mission or two and said, "Wow, it's a lot harder than it looks when you're playing teamed with one of my characters."

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Evilmeister
Global Contact: @Evilmeister
Level of Classification: Defender, 50
Origin: Science
Super Rank & Super Group: N/A

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Now some people I've seen have no Slow enhancements in thier Chilling embrace, this baffles me. Chilling embrace, if you're herding, is absolutly fantastic 3 slotted with Slow IO's. Add those to the Pacing of the Turtle "Chance for Recharge Slow" IO I have in mine, and everything around me is slowed to the point that they can attack me about a third of normal. For a Defence heavy build, that's more important then anything else, since a third of the attacks, means a third of the chances of them landing a hit on you.

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Slotting slow IO's does only improve the -Speed effects (i.e. Run, Jump and Flight speed). You can not improve the -Recharge by slotting normal IO's. The Pacing of the Turtle-proc is however useful for this, of course.

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Damage debuffing before the alpha may make the attack survivable for the tank but I doubt the debuffer would survive (of course Dark would also be debuffing accuracy, so that might work). I'd get a DP'd tank to take the alpha then start debuffing the damage so all the other attacks are less. If you take to long to kill the King but his damage is down to 25% (kin at work) then his alpha recharging may not be the deal breaker it normally is.

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Umm... I'm used to leading in on this little fellow. Rad/Elec defender. Starting with Radiation infection from the trench slightly south of psycho Clockwork King, following with Enervating field and since I'm out of sight, his alpha will be fully debuffed. When RI starts whirling the team can charge, since I have aggro anyhow.

After that it's usually up to team composition for general tactics, but he's not the big deal he's made out to be. Just because someone who haven't felt anything hurt the last 20 levels due to maxed defenses think he hits hard doesn't necessarily make the Psychic Clockwork King tough.

Good guide with great advice all in all. If you have the opportunity, go at him with an all-defender team. It's plenty fun.

New supergroup in Paragon city, sending out a call to all you estethically challenged out there. If your genome has betrayed your looks, this is the supergroup for you. The Ugly Guys looking for Hot Chicks' motto is: If she got [censored], she's hot.

Requirements:

Male. Ugly. Hideous. Repelling. You get the idea.

This is a supergroup created for players who enjoy a good laugh and has gotten tired of enlisting all too serious alts. Currently mid-teens, but hopefully it will grow both in levels and in number of active participants. And as always, blame the dead guy. Contact person is dead Physicist on Victory, or you could just PM me here.

Nice changes - but...

...when are we going to experience changes actually rewarding player skills/tactics? The changes with mission tweaks and so on is a great way for players to experience the challenge they want, but still - if a hero is considered to be Invincible, he shouldn't be allowed to exploit that he can choose difficult missions, get defeated a lot and end up having an exp bonus compared to playing at a lower difficulty, even with defeats.

When changes are adressed such that difficulties as Invincible are only available for players with no debt, Unyielding with maybe one or two defeats worth of debt and so on, player tactics is actually rewarded and it's suddenly more worth having a balanced team along if a player wants to tweak the mission settings.

Just something that's been floating around in my head ever since people started taking Invincible missions even though they most certain weren't invincible.

((This is great news. Finally I will have something better to do than standing around scouting for a ghost ship that rarely shows up, which I have been doing for a couple of days now since my missions are virtually impossible to solo. Yeah, carnival of shadows bosses weren't really that easy even before the boss upgrade, were they...))
//Evilmeister - level 41 Radiation/Electricity solo defender.

((Woohoo! So now you're saying I won't be kicked into little pieces within two seconds after entering melee with a boss? Yes, I was defeated in 1,5 seconds by a red boss. Two hits, and down. My controller didn't even see the kicks coming in on me.))
//Blade of Future - Level 33 Katana/Regen Scrapper

((Well, I don't really know if I'm going to notice this. After all I head straight on in, sparkling and sizzling and take out more of them before they get the better of me. Until I meet a boss. They always beat me up if I'm unprepared, so I'm used to it. It was fun on the respec though, which has become virtually impossible since bosses can't be taken out in large numbers anymore...))
//Teslaya - level 25 Electricity/Electricity Blaster