G_Tanker

FM, Claws, broadsword are my guesses, anyhoo.

For secondaries, really depends on how many opponents you intend to face. If you want to speed it up and aren't going to see more than 2-3 non AV's at a time, Fire Armor is #1 by a mile.

(Plus, BU + FE + HS = pure awesome)

[ QUOTE ]
For anything below AV level, my vote goes to Broadsword/Dark Armor.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I think I misread the question and thought this was about AV's. This statement is correct, broadsword puts out a hurt on one target at a time. It's not fast, but 2 hits = dead is fun.

[ QUOTE ]
Dark/Energy. and I admit the team was slightly heavy on defenders. Mostly bubblers and sonic resonances. Nonetheless, its not like I contributed nothing to the effort there. :P

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, you definitely contribute a ton holding agro and gathering mobs up, but I must point out the support you had along had a lot to do with your take on dark's survivability =)

Also, I'd at least 2 slot hasten.

Take slots out of Veng imo... or OG. Or both. Neither really "need" slots; I'd rather 3% more defense and hasten on max recharge personally.

GL HF!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
By the same token, the ITF is retardedly easy with a dark tanker simply because of the powersets the mobs have.

Lethal? Lol Dark regen.

negative energy? lolno try again

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... have you played a dark tanker on the ITF?

COF and OG are useless, base 10-20% defense disappears to negative #'s very quickly (no defense debuff resistance) and 70% S/L resist just doesn't stop the incoming damage when 19/20 swings are hitting you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. I have. at level 49 no less (i was sked to a 50 :P )

[/ QUOTE ]

What secondary/team makeup? Were you the main tank? My dark/fire/pyre tanker's run dozens of ITF's and it's rather pronounced how vulnerable she is against a big pack of cims. (She solo's the wall just fine, but start throwing 3-4 bosses in one pack and ... yep.)

And consider dropping HT to 2 slots and putting 4 dark watcher's despair in DN.

Also, put 2 Stupefy in HT.

Drop 2 slots from vengeance and put Zephyr in CJ.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
you need also a team to run a 54 custom boss farm and they hit harder than Cimerorans I can tell you

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends entirely on the selected powersets the bosses have.

[/ QUOTE ]

By the same token, the ITF is retardedly easy with a dark tanker simply because of the powersets the mobs have.

Lethal? Lol Dark regen.

negative energy? lolno try again

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... have you played a dark tanker on the ITF?

COF and OG are useless, base 10-20% defense disappears to negative #'s very quickly (no defense debuff resistance) and 70% S/L resist just doesn't stop the incoming damage when 19/20 swings are hitting you.

[ QUOTE ]
Hm. Maybe. I'm a bit wary of a tanking Scrapper, but if he's got a regular team that can support that, more power to him.

[/ QUOTE ]

/Invuln make terrific tanks when properly IO'd. Invincibility is a fantastic taunt aura, and they can be built to be very survivable.
/SR are also very survivable, but no taunt aura - still, I "tank" on mine (ie: go into the pile first and hold agro with damage).
/SD is between the two above, and very good.
/WP can be good, but poooor agro aura.
/Dark can do a fantastic job tanking minion-heavy areas, although being a resist set they're significantly more challenged against boss/eb/av heavy groups.

I'd hardly agree you need a regular team to support a tanking inclined scrapper. I just ran a ~55 minute ITF on an invuln scrapper and I don't think I went below 50% hp more than once (First rommie while I was in tells), even when I ran off and solo'd some of the crystal rooms. Sure, there were insps involved, but I'm ~ 40% S/L and 20-24% to E/NE/Melee/Range for defense - before invinc. Pop a purp and an OJ and ignore the level 52 dark dwarves/novas while you rip apart a crystal, then run off and find another one.

I'd vote fire/rad. Plenty of kins out there already.

[ QUOTE ]
Hmmm - any idea then why I have this impression that Invuln is dangerous? Is that just a mistake on my part?

[/ QUOTE ]

Invuln is more specialized than WP. WP is a very nice set, but not terribly strong at any one thing.

Invuln on the other hand is terrific vs. S/L, ok vs En/Ne/F/C, weak to psi and toxic, and only has dull pain as a heal.

WP is (generalizing) good vs. all and regenerates health. Not to be confused with "great" vs. all.

[ QUOTE ]
I just want to know, is it possible to Soft-Cap a Corr's Ranged Defense? I've tried multiple sets on Mids and closest I've gotten is bout 38% but that seemed to be gimping Twilight Grasp's Accuracy.

So, what powersets would be the best candidates for this? Or, is 38% the closest your probably gonna get?

[/ QUOTE ]

My fire/storm was pretty easy to softcap to range.

[ QUOTE ]
Seriously. I don't think I can pass through Atlas Park or Cap Au Diable without seeing "AE team lf Healer!!" What's more, someone will usually say "we need a healer" when I'm on an AE team. AE has created a new generation of noob, the kind that think the only type of worthwhile Defender is an Empath. Also, no one seems to realize, anymore, that a Controller possesses Defender primaries (albeit weaker version).

[/ QUOTE ]

... and I *LOVE* it.

Group I got randomly invited to: Stone/Fire tank, Fire/SS tank, Plant/Kin troller, Mind/Emp troller, Blaster, Blaster, Scrapper, Me (Dark/Fire tank?) -- I was mid-rebuild on the tank and out of money, so when I get a random tell for a farm I figure why not,

Group killed hella slow, was not safe (amusingly I go afk and they all die but the stoner), but the good part is... this leaves more of what *I* want out there.

I don't really want an emp unless I need to softcap defense.
I do want a kin with FS, but they're a dime a dozen.

I grab up the rads, darks, storms, TA's, and colds as fast as I see them for my teams... and am very happy when I see people going "LF TANK! LF HEALER!" because it means they're not looking for the good stuff.

[ QUOTE ]
The argument that Defenders aren't "meant" to solo is bogus. EVERYONE solos. ALL classes are more powerful in teams.

[/ QUOTE ]

I changed 'meant' to 'geared' for that reason. It's true, though. Look at cold, sonic, emp, ff... each have at least 2 powers you can't use on yourself.

[ QUOTE ]
You can crunch whatever numbers you like, the fact remains that a Defender does less damage than any other class, and uses the same endurance. Yes, they do more for teams, but not everyone teams all the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right. They also bring more to a team than any other AT, which is kind of the point I'm making

I don't mind a damage buff for defenders. I'm just not sure it's warranted.

[ QUOTE ]
I'll admit, I haven't read the whole thread, but it touched on Defender Damage, and that's what I came to the forums to talk about today, so here goes... What's more fun, Resting, or fighting foes? ...
Defenders need a bonus to their damage, or they need to have endurance equalized somehow. Because Defenders do a fraction of the damage anyone else does while using the same endurance, they end up using much more endurance to defeat the same challenges.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, I'm not against a defender damage buff. I'm just not sure it's warranted. Here's why, and I'll use turbo's example of rad/rad's (which, oddly enough, is probably the most friendly example for my purposes) :

First, since I don't have corruptor ranged modifier off the top of my head, I'm grabbing a points of data from City of Data to establish it. Defender is 0.65, Blaster is 1.125 iirc. Quick reverse engineering of electrical blast confirms corruptors are 0.75. Lets give everyone +95% damage from SO's, and AM. No assault or other buffs, no innate resistance to the blast set.

Rad/Rad defender: 0.65 base damage * 2.20 damage buffs * 1.3 damage -resistance = 1.86
Rad/Rad corrupter: 0.75 base damage * 2.15 damage buffs * 1.225 damage -resistance = 1.98

Clearly the corrupter, in a bubble, outdamages the defender when enervating field is up, both are running AM, both have 95% damage slotted, and the opponent has no innate resistance.

The thing is, what if you stacked four?
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Base Buffs Debuffs Total
2.6 2.95 2.2 16.87
3 2.75 1.9 15.68
</pre><hr />

Now, here's the kicker. What if you add four damage dealers, such as blasters? When you start taking advantage of other buffs (like assault) defender teams move further ahead. At this point your team is already silly-overpowered, but it underscores that stacked buffs/debuffs are how to melt content, and defenders have to work less hard to reach the 'silly-overpowered' point.

There are some interesting corr/def oddities. Over the course of this post I logged in both a 50 corr and def and checked in game, and many powers are actually the same on both sides (mainly the psuedo-pets like tar patch, sleet, fr, and fulcrum shift, but most of these pets are the massive damage multipliers).

FWIW, I wouldn't mind defender damage buffed, but I long ago accepted that defenders are not geared to solo... and are extremely powerful when you stack them in teams. FF primary does practically nothing to buff your damage or debuff your opponent, but it can make a team nigh untouchable with manuevers &amp; 3 powers. Not a bad setup.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
what I am saying is, there is more than just doing the AE missions all the time...

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you mean THE SAME FRIGGIN TFs and SFs and MISSIONS over and over and over again?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've done the heroside posi TF maybe.... 8 times in 4 years. It just hurts so much running all over, doing semi pointless missions to advance a very long plot. I do it on chars I really want an accolade for, and that's about it.

I've been known to do 5 ITF's in a row, back to back, most of which are under an hour. Fast, fun, furious...

I used to do similar with the Katie TF's. The waves of witches are actually quite fun.

I love my fire/storm.

One note on the insp popping method - I leveled my fire/invuln scrapper as the main tank in 53/54 farms a few weeks back as soon as he got invincibility. I was already at about 15% S/L, so I'd build teams to ensure I got a fort or bubbles, and always had insps if buffers got lazy. He's softcapped now, but it worked extremely well.

[ QUOTE ]
Did I miss something?

I would rather not have to depend on the proper team build to keep me alive. Let's be honest, sometimes the buffs just arent available.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, I totally agree. But dark is a *resist* based set, not a defense set (even though it comes with CoD, which is not bad!) so it's tougher to get defense when you're starting from practically zero. Could be worse (ie: fire armor).

[ QUOTE ]
Any Hero Designer builds would be nice. My lethal/smashing is what im worried about, considering thats what the majority of the farms are nowadays. Yes, obviously I need to up my melee defenses, but what sets are the best? Which sets should I mix-and-match to get that perfect balance?

[/ QUOTE ]

Given you're starting from 0 and COD and Weave and CJ are all +def to all, you've got options. I think you will have a tough go of it though - I just set up my dark/fire/pyre tanker to be 33% def to melee. I could be 40% (heck if I dropped /pyre I could softcap) but I ran out of powers to IO mule - I'd rather KEEP fireball, for instance At some point I may get 2 sets of obliteration and hit 40% anyhow, we'll see.

This should get you started. Most common is either 6 slot touch of death (3.75% melee) or 4 slot Kinetic Combat (3.75% S/L) - you can build either direction, I prefer melee to S/L when I have a choice. 6 Obliteration (3.75% melee / 1.875% S/L) for the AOE's is standard, but expensive.

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

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

You need to up your melee defense by a lot and carry purple insps on top of it, or get fort/cold shields/bubbles. At that point, you're fine.

Edit: Really I'd just carry two rows worth of insps. You can buy them before entering - every AE run I clean out my insp tray before going in and buy what I need. When the **** hits the fan, eat enough purples to get you near or above the softcap, and then kill them before they wear off.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This kinda kills me. Dark has better -regen than rad. HT is 100% identical to LR, and TG has more on top.

[/ QUOTE ]

Except Howling Twilight's -regen has a 30 second duration on a 180 second recharge power, whereas LR's a 30 second duration on a 90 second recharge. Twilight Grasp looks like only -50% regen in PvE, too, which is, what, a -7.5% regen versus an even AV at level 50? (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I often suck at interpreting City of Data.) Although between you and Fluffy, it's probably possible to stack that sucker half a dozen deep if you really want.

[/ QUOTE ]

True on the recharge times, yet I haven't run into an AV where this has been an issue. I also usually have it down around 45s downtime from hasten and random AM/SB. Valid points, tho. Still, the "we need a rad" thing keeelz me.

I also want to say I've seen 3 archery blasters do some very nice farming. Double BU, ROA x3 is brutal.

[ QUOTE ]
"Outweighs" how?

The blaster will do more damage. The defender will have more tricks up its sleeve to deal with the various situations that arise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let me modify that statement.

The blaster will do more damage soloing, and get bigger numbers when buffed/debuffed.

The defender will make large teams do a lot, lot more damage, and be safer at that. The cost being the defender's own damage is relatively low compared to the blaster.

On my teams I'd take the defender long before the blaster.

[ QUOTE ]
Is it just me or do my post get brushed under the carpet for no particular reason. I'm a defender of the non-power gamer mentality. Not everyone is happy until they have their over powered creation that can do everything while eating a bag of chips.

The reason I don't number crunch is because I want to play what is fun, and what is fun to me. Could it be less powerful than a corruptor in terms of damage? Sure, but that's not what's important to my play style or what I consider fun. My Corruptors are fun along with my Defenders. I've yet to feel gimped for playing Defenders while on a team.

Heck, when playing Crainium, me and my mom are eager to pick sculpting. Why? We find it fun and are good at it. For games, winning is fun, but what is fun is fun. If you get through playing a session on a character that isn't fun to play? Why keep him? Does it matter how much damage the character does? If that's how you define fun, then yes. Each person's definition of fun is different. If the simple logic of "people are different" makes me a "believer type", then so be it. I'm enjoying my characters regardless.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is your POV is stated as 100% subjective (see bolded piece above) so there's nothing to discuss. I have no problem with playing to have fun - I had a tanker along 2 weeks ago on a 54 boss farm team that didn't run anything but invincibility and acrobatics, who used jump kick, flurry and hurl as his attack chain. (I can't make this stuff up, it really happened)

I'm not really in this to argue anything (and definitely not with Turbo, as historically it's been a waste of time), but I don't think defenders need much, if any, of a buff - but I play on big teams, where force multipliers are that much more effective and I don't notice the underpowered damage.