Genkio

My Ice/Storm is one of my favorite characters. Early on, the damage is lacking, but the controls more than make up for it. Ice Slick and Freezing Rain is effective even against the Romans, as are the slows, making it one of the better Controllers for the ITF. In the later levels, Lightning Storm adds enough damage to counteract Ice/'s low damage, and because Ice/ is good at setting containment, when you pick up the APPs, your damage absolutely skyrockets.

On top of that, proc'd out Frostbite followed by proc'd out Freezing Rain followed by Ice Storm is fuuun.

As stated previously, you should not play a 'healer'. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play an Emp/ defender. They do far more than just heal, and the last five powers are just as, if not more important than the first four. The point is that pure 'healers' are one of the few things that can challenge petless Masterminds to the throne of worthlessness.

Why? Because healing is the worst form of damage mitigation in the game. It has its place, but that place is behind soft control, buffs, debuffs, and hard control. Its purely reactive, and thus absolutely useless against heavy hitting attacks in large groups or against AVs that can two-shot squishes before you can even fire off the heal.

Now, Defenders are worth playing. They're one of the more active and versatile archetypes, and there is no greater joy than turning yourself and your team into unstoppable tankmages while your enemies cower in a corner accepting the sweet embrace of death. I'd recommend looking through the Defender guides on this forum and looking for one that suits your playstyle, but a few general recommendations:

Rad/Elec: Heavy controls and debuffs, but you're going to be stuck teaming with it, since the damage is awful. However, there have been times where I've tanked with mine thanks to Choking Cloud, Tesla Cage, and Short Circuit (which apparently prevents enemies from attacking for a very short period of time). Put hold procs in the attacks and it just gets silly.

Kin/Sonic: Buff you and your teams damage to the damage cap, debuff the enemy's resistance, and go to town. Doesn't need travel powers and can respec out of stamina in the late twenties.

Storm/Ice: CHAOS! AHAHAHAHAHAAA!

Dark/Dark: Probably best for team-play, it focuses on debuffing accuracy to absolutely nothing. You and your entire team will effectively become tanks.

You can, in fact, give them inspirations. While you can't directly target them, you can place the inspiration on their name in the team bar or select them under 'give inspiration to so-and-so'.

The support classes are my favorite to play. I get a somewhat sadistic satisfaction in turing me and my team into a raging death machine while my enemies just kind of wimper in a corner.

I can see the synergy in Dark/Ice. Aside from it combining two heavily control-focused powersets together, Tar Patch and Petrifying Gaze works quite nicely with /Ice. Tar Patch further slows everything within Ice Storm + Blizzard, helping ensure that everything takes the full extent of the damage, while simultaneously debuffing their resistance, making the damage of the two togeather absolutley ridiculous. Petrifying Gaze gives you a second hold to stack with Freeze Ray at a much earlier level than Bitter Freeze Ray. It's also an overall better hold than Bitter Freeze Ray, allowing you to skip it. Plus, the combination of -ToHit and -Recharge really help to lessen the incoming damage.

Hmm. Depending on the +Recharge needed to make the build effective, I may consider TA/Dark. I tend to like cheaper builds since I usually just hop onto a new character when they reach 50, outside of doing stupid things like unleashing an HVAS an the Romans on the wall.

By the way, thanks for the suggestions, all.

Hmm. Both Dark/Ice and Kin/Ice do seem like nice combinations, and I already have a character concept for both. Guess I'll flip on it.

I wouldn't mind more suggestions, though, as I'm a bit of a Defender junkie and I could always use a reason to make another alt. :P

I'm feeling the urge to make a new hero today. Defenders are looking nice to me, as always. However, I'm in need of a little help, as I can't really figure out what kind of Defender to go with.

As to what I'm looking for, the most important thing to me is solo capability, as I'll mainly be playing with myself or one to two other players outside of the occasional TF. Damage, damage buffs, and resistance debuffs will definitely be necessary. Less important is a bit of a Controller-y feeling. For obvious reasons, I like being able to take enemies out of the battle and maul them at my leisure. The 'Oops! You're out of endurance!' sound bothers the living hell out of me, so it's preferable that endurance isn't an issue post-Stamina. I can, and have, worked around it before (My third 50 was an Ice/Storm Controller. Goodbye end bar), but I'd rather not have to. I don't mind if it doesn't really begin to shine until its twenties, but I will not wait until my tier nines to be effective.

I'd like to avoid /Sonic and /Elec, as I've already played them and have no interest in repeating secondaries. I am interested in /Ice and /Arch, especially combined with Kin/ and Storm/. TA/ also sounds fun, although I've heard it works better for Controllers. I'm pretty open to most combinations, though, so long as I can find a common theme in them.

Captain Codpiece spreading love around the world.

... Not event the devs are spared.

Fortunata Dijhal petitioning for male waist capes.
...Through somewhat questionable means.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Not the best costume ever but i was runnin around and got this nice little glitch but now i wish i can do this for real.

[/ QUOTE ]
Isn't that offered as a capeless shoulderpiece anyway?
At least, I thought it was...

[/ QUOTE ]Nope

[/ QUOTE ]
Well...
That's kind of odd.

I just went and checked because I did recall seeing that.
T-shirts, Baggy, Robes, Jackets, and Trenchcoats DO have that option. However, Tights, Tops with Skin, Sleeveless Robes, Sleeveless Jackets, and the robotic arms do NOT have that option.

[ QUOTE ]
Not the best costume ever but i was runnin around and got this nice little glitch but now i wish i can do this for real.

[/ QUOTE ]
Isn't that offered as a capeless shoulderpiece anyway?
At least, I thought it was...

Marionettes. Evil marionettes.
You cannot go wrong with evil marionettes.

Also, Fusionettes. The most evil powerset possible!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Because I like to make eyeballs bleed.

[/ QUOTE ]Needs more color.

[/ QUOTE ]
No! It needs...

More codpiece.

Those boots and the jacket were perfect for my fabulous fortunata, so...

Fortunata Dijhal out and about in her new outfit petitioning for male 'waist' capes.
...Through somewhat questionable means.

> Take #2 Pencil.

My characters, in order of oldest to latest (Also in increasing absurdity):

There's Eddy Marshall, who barely qualifies beyond his description.

Followed by Fortunata Dijhal, the incredibly flamboyant Fortunata (who's in no way associated with Arbiter Fabulous).

Next up is Generic Shonen Hero (no screenshots as of yet), who has two trays worth of macros for various shonen references, including "Aha, $Target! I may be bleeding from every orifice on my body, but the power of SELF CONFIDENCE makes me invincible!", "Screw the rules, I have super powers!", "Excuse me while I have a snack...DRAMATICALLY!", and "Take this! My love, my anger, and all of my sorrow! $$ powexec_scorch."

And lastly, Captain Codpiece, who, with the help of Eros' magical codpiece,is spreading love around the world. Yeaaaah...

And this time, STAY DEAD.

I just love the mood of this one.

Oh, hi th...What?

Fluffy felt left out...

Lecturing Fusionette.

"Lecturing" Fusionette.

...And fade to black.

EMF strutting her stuff.

Level 35 MM looking for ITF.

A friendly reminder to see your proctologist.

Oh, how I love this screenshot.

And this one.

Tee-hee!

Here's my little attempt, going off the last image:
Came out a tad too stage assistant...y.
I'll look into swapping the colors and parts around when my head isn't killing me.

I'm up for the idea. I've got plenty of time to waste, and I need a good excuse to spend time in the character creator.

Glad ya like them.
I just need an excuse to spend more time making costumes.

Well, I've come up with two ideas so far:
For Grand Cross, I simplified the costume from the one you provided while still giving it the futuristic look the original had going. I also reduced the color scheme to three colors: White (For the ice), Red (For the fire), and Gold (because it catches your eye):Grand Cross.

Icefang sounded like an interesting character to try, so here's a new, rather simple look for him: Icefang. Obviously, the white and light blue are there to work with his ice attacks, but I added some black to it because lighter colors tend to look best when next to dark colors (Also because the neck cover looks silly with lighter colors because of how it blends in with the skin...God I hate that). I tried to give him tattered and baggy clothing as it tends to show the characters age better than form-fitting spandex. I can't say I'm exactly pleased with how it turned out, but it's something, especially considering that futuristic looks are more my specialty.

>Talk to the Shopkeeper about exchanging your sword.

No. Sorry for the confusion, the last two posts were in response to Rebel, who had edited his post, and I removed the part of my post that was correcting him.

Don't sweat it. I've made the mistake of posting too early a few times myself.

*Edited out the now out of place response.*
I do agree to a point. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to them, though, and guessing they've just never had to deal with how picky text adventures are.

Looking at the lore, I'm guessing that the rikti monkies are actually Rikti/similar to the Rikti.
*Spoiler*
I mean, the Rikti are from Earth, and were once humans. It's safe to assume that a few other animals on their Earth could be changed as well.
*Spoiler*

Though, the amount of nutrients one could get out of the air is probably not enough to keep one alive, even when factoring bacteria, pollen, and the like.

The second one is slightly more likely, I would imagine...

And yes, I know I'm a killjoy. I take great pride in it. ;P