Gorgar

I've done the set of Cloud Senses in Fearsome Stare on a defender, and found that I miss the fear duration a lot. Partly this is because I'm putting level 30 IOs in what to me is a key power, and partly the set just doesn't have enough recharge. The fear wears off before the power recharges. If that's not an issue for you, or the debuff is really important, then it works. I'll probably shift that set to Fluffy next respec though, and go back to five Glimpse of the Abyss and a recharge in Fearsome Stare, because overall I've found the fear effect to be more helpful in survivability than additional to-hit debuff. If you're not maxed in ranged defense the debuff might be more crucial.

I thought about using that proc in Bonfire. I've got the kb/recharge and end/recharge in there already from that set. Didn't know if it'd work in a pseudopet power like that though.

According to ParagonWiki, there's some sort of bizarre suppression schedule on it.

Trapdoor not hitting means you're halfway there. Now you just need damage. I'm not sure what the defender version of Dark Blast is like, but on a corruptor, it's not the most damaging set ever made. I've found I had to take Night Fall and Tenebrous Tentacles, and slot both for damage (though I like the creative chance for recharge slow in TT).

Are you able to keep up a constant attack chain with powers slotted for damage? (TT doesn't count for this purpose, since it's slotted for immob.)

Can't speak for most people, but my main (also en/en) is built around those powers to some extent. I three-slot Boost Range for recharge, and leave it on autofire, but my style is built around Bonfire, energy's inherent knockback, ranged defense (not softcapped, just 30) and keeping things at a range where I have more attacks than they do, so I don't want any downtime.

I slot Aid Self with two interrupts and four frankenslotted heal/rech to max both heal and recharge. I also have two recharge in Power Boost, which I have a hotkey for and fire off before healing. No set bonuses for this slotting, but between range, kb, bonfire, significant movement speed bonuses, and the interrupt slotting, I have a fairly reliable way to regain half my life. To me, this is far more important than the set bonuses in any heal set.

I can't see your build because I don't use Mids, but I can vouch for ranged defense in a dark defender as a general concept. I've got mine softcapped to just ranged, mostly from full sets of Lockdown, Thunderstrike, and Red Fortune (both Shadow Fall and Maneuvers). Survivability is quite nice with that.

Took mine to 50. Well recommended, would play again, etc. It takes a while to get used to how to play it well on a team, but it definitely can be done. Ranged defense will help a lot, when and if you get to IO slotting. Thunderstrikes are your friend.

Freezing Rain is such a useful power that you could use just that while hover-blasting and be a great help to the team. And of course Hurricane makes a tremendous difference, both offensively to keep a boss in a corner and more or less helpless, and defensively, as I can't count the times I've picked up a bit of aggro and never noticed it until the end of the fight because some boss kept trying to wade through the winds.

I don't team mine much any more, for two reasons: I've got another defender that works even better on a team (dark/sonic), and the storm powers are just more fun for me when I don't have to hold back. But with more ambushes in trickier missions these days, she might make a comeback.

Fire/Fire gives you a lot of fast-activating high damage powers. It's what I'd go for given that you're looking for damage.

Energy Manipulation is a nice set. I use it more than any other blaster secondary, and my main is Energy/Energy. Boost Range will perma out of the box with three recharge, but overall I wouldn't build around this unless you wanted to go strictly ranged, which doesn't sound like your intent. The other great utility power in /Energy is Power Boost, but as Fire/ doesn't have secondary effects to boost, this would really only help if you went with the Medicine pool, or to strengthen Personal Force Field, etc.

You could build around the stuns (Stun, Total Focus) as protection for a blapper, but they are both slow to activate, and you need both to stun a boss. Mostly I use /Energy for the utility powers, though if you take a primary with a stun, such as Sonic, you then have enough tools to do effective single-target control.

But given your post, I'd suggest you simply burn them with Fire/Fire. You can never have too much overkill.

Also disliked this change. It might make sense for invites from the search window, guessing that perhaps this is to prevent people from just inviting everyone listed until they have a full team.

But it sure doesn't make sense when inviting off the global list. At that point, it's a team of regular players, and it makes no sense to throttle it.

I was happy just putting the multiple blind inviters on /ignore, as those teams rarely are decent anyway.

My dark/sonic is my best character. It's a great powerset combo. But if you're looking for damage, agree with the above: sonic/energy for massive damage and stuns, sonic/mm for two great cone attacks.

Fruit Salad is a great name. I'd join that channel. Defenders are probably my favorite AT; it's the only one I've got multiple 50s of.

My main does more or less what you're looking for, I think, but with a different epic. Also no fighting pool. At 50, I've got a ranged defense of about 30, and I can solo comfortably at +2/x2 and don't have problems on TFs. In fact, I picked up Recall Friend and Resuscitate just because I usually seem to be alive when others aren't, when things go wrong. Concentrated aoe fire will bring her down, and flying melee bosses can be annoying, but overall she's fairly hard to kill for a blaster.

I don't have Mids, so I can't give you a build, but I can outline the important powers and the slottings. Some of these things work together to make it all work. It's pretty range-focused, as I took all nine of the primary and six-slotted everything but Aim, and took only Build Up, Power Boost and Boost Range from the secondary. Mostly I don't like using slots for set mules, though in this case both Health and Power Push have more slots than they'd otherwise get.

Single-target attacks: I took all five of these, six-slotted with Thunderstrike. Loads of ranged defense, acc, flight speed.

Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast: acc/2 rech/3 dam/range hamis. No set bonuses, but max range and damage, decent recharge. These keep the mobs at bay.
Boost Range: 3 recharge, perma, auto-fire. This is a core power.
Power Boost: 2 recharge, used before Aid Self.

Fitness: six Numina in Health for the ranged def and the bonus recovery. Four Perf Shifters in Stamina.

Travel: Some BotZ in Hover and TP (with all this range, it's good for really hauling it across IP, but otherwise I just use Fly) for more defense. Also a -kb in Fly. And a stealth in CJ.

Medicine: Aid Self gets two interrupts and four frankenslotted for max heal and recharge. All the kb gives me plenty of time for this to go off, and I get just over half my health back if I use Power Boost first. Move speed from Thunderstrike and pairs of Gaussian in Aim/Buildup means I can always duck around a corner, too.

Epic: I tried the force epic and dropped it for fire. I find PFF and Repulsion Field to be inferior for my purposes to Bonfire and Aid Self. If your concept demands force, that's different; otherwise I'd consider trying fire.
Fire Shield: Steadfast +def.
Bonfire: max recharge. I used Force Feedback for the move speed bonus. This power is a cornerstone of the build. I put Bonfire down between me and the mobs, then open with aim/buildup/snipe, then quickly follow with Explosive Blast and Energy Torrent. All the knockback works more or less together, not by stacking but by repeatedly shoving things mostly away from me. Also makes it harder for most mobs to chase me if I need to retreat.
Rise of the Phoenix: I five-slot this with her only purple set, the stun. Gives me plenty of time to heal up, maybe revive someone else, leave the area, etc. I particularly like that on top of being hard to kill, there are repercussions if they manage it. It could be argued that taking Fighting and using these slots in Tough and Weave instead would be preferable, but this way is more fun.

You could squeeze more ranged defense out of a force epic build if you slotted PFF with Red Fortune. Same with Weave. I thought about it, but in the end Bonfire and having a quick reliable self-heal that doesn't need insps was too much fun to give up.

You could probably get somewhere with using Sweep and then Aid Self, but without a way to boost its healing, it might not be worth the two powers and the six slots. On my energy blaster, I use two interrupt and frankenslot the other four for heal/recharge, but I've also got all the kb tools in the world and Power Boost to make it more effective. Not sure I'd bother on a scrapper, though.

Also, I probably wouldn't combine DB with its combos with Regen. I think it'd be ultimately frustrating to have to choose between finishing a combo or using a Regen power. Willpower's a nice set and pairs well with a busy attack set.

Storm is good for this. Overall, knockback seems to be good for requiring quick thinking. I've had the experience you are looking for, I think, with the following:

Storm/Energy
Illusion/Storm
Energy/Energy

All have significant ranged defense, which, along with the knockback, helps keep them alive.

Everything I've read about forms-based Kheldians suggests that they'd be good for this too, but mine is a human-only peacebringer and doesn't really have that same level of tactical feeling. Better than a scrapper for this, with two self-heals and some knockback, but not up there with the pure kb artists, for me.

There's also Sonic/Energy, which has some of that feel once you get the sleep. Combining that with the one kb attack and the stun factor gives you enough control tools to keep you thinking; if it's too easy, up your difficulty a bit until the challenge is right.

Overall I like the change, though I do think I'll find it odd that all of my characters have built-in Hurdle. It'll be a little weird on the ones that are magic-based ranged sorcerer types. They're not particularly athletic.

It doesn't ruin my concept, and I'd rather have the change as is than not at all, but I'd certainly prefer it if I didn't suddenly have overly jumpy wizards.

I have a couple of these. Not quite *full* support, but mostly support. Emp/Sonic with the sonic control powers, and the first two blasts slotted, and an Ill/Emp. Both are built for staying invisible and not engaging the mobs too much, just helping out the tank. The Ill/Emp is a lot more effective, because of Phantom Army, the fear pet, and the hold. Phantasm doesn't hurt either.

But my Dark/Sonic defender is better than both, and contributes more overall. Full support/pure healer isn't really needed in the game, as you have been hearing, but it's not *wrong* to try it, especially since that will let you get used to a new game with a role you know you like. You're always free to respec into a more balanced build later, or roll an alt or ten. Or decide that you still like playing full support.

Who you use Fortitude on you learn over time. Anyone that starts taking damage once it wears off is a good one to keep it up on. Some tanks will benefit; some won't much notice it. Blasters and defenders tend to be where I put spare applications of it, and the occasional scrapper.

I'm a big fan of firing off Regen Aura unannounced in the middle of a fight, and Recovery Aura right after. The radius is big enough that you'll catch most people, and they'll learn to stay near, probably. I really hate people calling to gather to the empath for RAs and then wasting half of it getting to the next group.

I went with Energy for massive knockback. Works pretty well solo, but you keep plenty busy. Dark or Ice would probably both be better, though.

I can't see the trailer from work, but this sounds exactly like the kind of thing I want out of a bonus pack or whatever these are called: Costumes and auras. Probably will grab it the day it comes out.

This is a 10 for me as well. I put the most work into power coloring on dark miasma, dark armor, and energy blast characters, but they'll never really be where I want them until dark epics can be colored to match and Aid Self can be done without the device.

In fact, as much as I really like how the dark powers look in dark green, it's not very practical, because of the Christmas Tree Effect that happens once I turn on Oppressive Gloom.

Yule or die!

Most of mine don't have Hasten. With three new powers to pick up, a bunch might want it, but few will take it until it can be recolored or essentially shut off. Don't get me wrong; it's a really pretty effect and well done, but it doesn't always make visual sense with every character. Sometimes you wind up looking like Super Recharge Man, if the other powersets don't have loud visual effects, such as MA/SR. Which I think is kind of funny, having a pool power that gets three slots and that's it be the defining visual characteristic.

Character-based visual things (costumes, auras, power coloring, to some extent new powersets) and game mechanics (new powersets, AI and mission changes, incarnates) are 10s for me, and content, bases, pvp, badges, etc are all pretty much unimportant to me.

Also, I disagree that power coloring is a failure. It's probably kept me in the game for months. Sure, it's not finished, can't wait until it is, but I sure wouldn't have wanted them to hold off on it until they could do it for epics and pools too. Glass half full, I guess.

It is morally wrong not to use knockback attacks on snipers if you have them.

I haven't noticed this change on the tip missions I've done. But in general, I am for it. In my ideal world, all mobs would have agendas of their own and not just stand around in convenient little clumps of all roughly the same composition. I've tried some AE missions with scads of patrols, and they're more fun for me.

Barely playing at all. Zero desire to play lowbies, and anyone 20 and above will still be different when they've got three more powers to play with, even if they're not slotted; most characters will probably donate some slots from powers that are slotted now to the new ones they can pick up. I'll worry about it when I19 drops, and meanwhile a break is nice.

Sorry to see him go. Overall I really like the animations in this game. And I remember seeing him in some event (forgot which) and was just impressed with how he carried himself and represented the company. Thanks for doing such a hell of a job for so long, and good luck in the future.