Griff Mender
-
Posts
230 -
Joined
-
One fun combo would be a pair of emp defenders. They can keep each other buffed at all times and will be one of the safest duo's you can play as. You can mix it up too. basicly the secondary could be to theme. a pair of emp/arch angels or something like that. When i first started I rolled an emp/dark while my buddy went emp/elec. it was crazy how much fun we had just duoing missions.
-
dont have a rad/elec, but i do have a rad/rad and a kin/elec. And from my experience it sounds like a fun combo. rad is all around great by itself. It doesnt need any support from the secondary to be effective. So if its for fun. Then that's great. As far as pitfalls go. Depending on how close you feel like getting to the enemy you may want to consider which powers out of elec you are going to take. choking cloud + short circuit would be pretty funny. You'd have to be close up to do it but you could throw down the clouds, run choking cloud get close enough so that you know that rad infection will help short circuit hit. That would be a decent combo. Dunno if the snipe from elec is really necessary with so much fun to have up close. Voltaic sentinel is probly skippable. Grab fallout cuz nuking your fallen allies bodies as a form of discipline sounds like oodles of fun. I'd avoid the nuke from elec so that you dont have the end crash as well. Since your main contribution to the team is toggles. Also going with the elec APP will give you two holds you can stack (tesla cage and the hold from the APP) and that will hold even bosses when used together. All in all you cant pick a bad secondary for rad since rad itself is just plain awesome. Enjoy the new toon.
-
Quote:I've been coming to the same realization lately. I play defenders pretty much exclusively except for a 50 Ill/Rad I made just to see what soloing was like. With a 50 emp, 50 kin, and a stable of other defenders all in the 30ish range to pick from, I like the flexibility to play what I want. Unless we are going after something specific like a GM or a really difficult TF, it doesnt matter what I grab. Each set has the tricks to take care of the team. My recommendation (and this is probly just me) is to take every defender type and level them to about 32 or so. Then just wing it. Use SOs. Just grab what feels right for the moment. Got some crazy kamikaze blaster swan diving into a pack of lvl 54 Praetorian wolves while the team is on the other side of the map? Better pack a rez. And popcorn. Need to drop a GM or Reichsman? grab a rad. or a kin. or a .......meh just wing it. Have fun. play what feels good at the moment.Originally Posted by Rhynwa
I have to go with the semi-goofy answer. I want whichever you *want* to play... the truth is any defender is better than no defender. Period. If you are playing the defender you LIKE the best, however, chances are better that you really understand the sets, you know the tricks and/or you will be paying attention and playing your best. A poorly played rad will not help as much as a well played FF; a poorly played kin or emp will lead to more team misery (and team whining) than a well played storm. I like playing for fun, and I am willing to forgo the 10 minutes of 'go faster' for watching someone really play their toon well; a fun group rather than building some imaginary optimal team of powers/ATs that I want to quit within moments of starting. -
The cages definitely have their uses. And if you have the room in your build and think you'll get use out of it, i say go for it. I prefer other ways of rendering foes useless without making them invincible, such as taking /elec and going with tesla cage. there's even a hold power in electric mastery that lets you hold so you could stack holds that pretty much takes anything out of the fight for a good long time but allows it to take damage. psi has dominate you could use as well. I mean there are alternatives that will reliably remove a threat without making the team wait to take out the threat.
-
The answer is to have an ally that the defender can use those buffs on. When solo this would mean that the defender would need a pet. This could be added to the Defender Epic powers as a level 41 power choice. It would also fill the bill on balancing buffing sets with debuffing sets. A debuffing defender would get a little use out of a pet but a buffing defender would finally be able to use all those ally only buff powers while solo. I feel that this would do much to balance the discrepancies between buffing and debuffing defenders.[/QUOTE]
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the intent here. (That happens on a constant basis) But a FF with a pet? Wouldnt that be a controller with a FF secondary? Ill/FF? etc? or Worse, a MM? There are already two different ATs that do the pets with forcefields thing. And do it better. I'm not sure thats what we need. -
On blue side I always enjoyed the Maria Jenkins arc for the Praetorians. I spiced it up with the RWZ arc which is really fun as long as you dont mind the Rikti, and you get juicy vanguard merits to boot. You could grab an ITF as well to get some decent xp as long as it isnt a speed ITF. There's quite a bit of endgame content to push the last few levels. Or heck, exemp down. Now with the new sidekick system you could technically level that last bit doing lvl 10 missions with some lowbie friends. Always wondered if you could use that system to lvl in the high 40s by doing sewer runs with the lowbs? I think it would work.
-
Longbow chaser racing would be awesome! Im all for this. It wouldnt even be hard to impliment really. the models already exist for it and it would be so much fun.
-
Quote:Gotta agree with this one. checking the info on the team when first coming on will be a big help on picking who gets fort and such. As a buffer by trade (healing is a pleasant bonus) you only get access to a few buffs and not all of them are available on everyone. Even with hasten you cant buff the entire team. Tanks dont really need fort for the most part. But throw fort onto a shield scrapper, and that's one less person to worry about. Toss on a grant invis onto said scrapper and you can basicly pretend they arent there and let them go crazy all over the map. (exaggeration of course but still that much defense means you wont have to worry about them.) Personally, and this all depends on the team im on, my first person ill consider for fort is the controller. the bonus to accuracy will help them help me. Forting any Kins is huge. That will benefit the team more than anything i can think of. Again its the accuracy buff im thinking of here. Hang out near the kin, run tactics and buff with fort and you have yerself a very potent buffstick. But about the original post. Since i personally like to keep with a support roll on my emp/dark, (leadership toggles, grant invis, emp buffs etc) and i only run 3 dark powers (darkblast, tenebrous tentacles, nightfall) for the -acc debuff they bring (its best to use those two for the most -acc for your buck since they are cone attacks) then i have room for absob pain. And it's a great safety net. I may only need to use it once every few missions but when I do, im glad i did.Originally Posted by Tabik
This, in my opinion, is precisely what differentiates a good Emp from a satisfactory one. The first thing an Emp should do on any team is /info each other player on their team, see what their powersets are, and what powers they have. Based on that assessment, determine what players will benefit the most from your buffs and make them your priority. That said, it's necessary to remain flexible based on the actual performance of the team, changing up your initial buffing strategy if need be.
-
Please note however that getting the recharge down to one minute is crazy expensive. It's detailed in local_man's ill/rad guide in the controllers forum. A reasonable amount of recharge can be attained with his recommended build but in no way is it perma. It works tho given that you get alot of mitigation via spectral terror and the phantasm has its own decoy it uses to tank for you. if you have any questions about illusion i really recommend checking out local_man's ill/rad guide in the controllers forum.
-
Thanks for the awesome suggestions guys! So looking into what I was going for and going with your suggestions, I went with Dark/Dark. Part of the reason is that the debuffs will really help with the hard targets. That and I had totally forgotten about Fluffy. I mean, a pet that does pretty much the same job as you? Awesome. I mean if i went off the deep end getting chatty and in team chat, Fluffy would still be doing part of my job for me. Sure I won't be just setting follow on the tank and let the pet do the work, but its nice to see when i get all chatty and lose some of my focus that Ill be able to have a little help in the debuff and heal department. I tend to run at the mouth when on a team. What with 7 other geek-inclined folks to talk to, who can miss that opportunity? So when I was looking for something relaxed, much of the reason came from how much I like to talk. So Dark/Dark it is. Thanks so much for the suggestions. Im sure my altitis will kick in eventually and I'll make the others as well.
-
Hey gang! So I've gotten the leveling bug out of my system for now. Got my 50 emp/dark, 50 kin/elec, 50 ill/rad, and a PB closing in on it. That'll do me for a while. Now i just need to kick back and relax. Now, the defender class has always been my fav. Support is just plain awesome and I couldnt solo if i wanted to with my SG pounding down the doors. (fun folks) So I'd like to know what you guys think would be the most relaxing defender to play as? I totally dont mind starting a new one really since my SG doesnt care what toon ya bring as long as you have fun. So im just looking for something nice and relaxing. I heard about FF being pretty laid back but didnt know if it would be "too laid back". What with 4 minutes of thumb twiddling in between buffs. Any feedback would be good. So far my emp/dark is pretty darned laid back. I run my leadership toggles, I buff them with fort and grant invis for the def bonus, I spot heal, then the rest of the time us fun and games with tenebrous tentacles and nightfall
But is there anything more relaxed than that? I dont want to purple him out, I dont care about being uber. I'd just like a defender who is as relaxing as humanly possible to enjoy my few hours after work. So, suggestions will be greatly appreciated. -
Quote:Originally Posted by MonkeySpirit
Take both, use both.
Honestly, calculating heal-per-second doesn't make sense when talking about Empathy. It's a reactive set, you only heal when damage comes in. The healing powers in Empathy serve two purposes: one, to reduce downtime between fights by toppinng up everyone's hp; and two, to patch up any sudden holes in your team's defense. After the first few levels, when people get defense powers, strong debuffs and reliable controls, you should only need to heal when other teammates make mistakes or the enemy gets a lucky hit, resulting in dangerous chunks of hp that are gone. Your role is to bring those chunks back as soon as possible, not to be outhealing all incoming attacks. The Resurrect power follows this logic, too. If a mistake so big happens that a teammate's down, it only takes you a few seconds to undo it.
Empathy's single-target heals are not for supporting, Empathy's heals are for saving people. (Which is something the other defender sets can't do. They all bring strong defense strategies, but if they fail, they're screwed, whereas a heal will always pospone a death.)
Your various heals are there to give you space to react. Sometimes, multiple mistakes will happen at the same time, and that's when you need to have both HO and AP, so you can spread yourself around and save whoever needs saving. In this sense, HO is more useful because it's up more often and can react to more mistakes than AP can, whereas AP can react to one very bad mistake very very well.
That said, yes, AP is indeed nasty because it lets you open to damage. Playing my Pain MM, I found out that the trick to getting around this is to boost your regen as much as possible. This is easy for Pain MMs because they can take both Health and Supress Pain. Empathy gives you Regen Aura, which isn't as reliable. My advice is to learn to use RegA as a self-support power instead of a team buff. Don't cast it together with RA, but keep it instead for when you sense that things might go wrong and you're going to need AP.
I completely agree. I have a 50 emp/dark and I cant tell you how many times this has really saved my team when things go terribly wrong. I reserve it, like the others here, for when the tank takes a major spike of damage. When a heal other won't save them or you just used it a split second ago on the scrapper who went all Leeroy on the wrong group, (I'm looking at you Miss Melee.) It's important to save that tank. Even if you only use it once every few missions its still worth having it when you need it. It is skippable, but I dont think I'd want to. That, and it gives you a spot to throw in another set of doctored wounds for that recharge bonus. ya know....if you're into that kinda thing. -
Quote:Right. According to paragon wiki, the unit that is the sky raiders now existed prior to the rikti war and fought in it. They were called the JCSTRB also nicknamed Vigilance. So the character i wanted to put together was a member of that unit, who would have close ties with the current skyraiders members and tactics as the sky raiders of today are the surviving 15% of the JCSTRB. After being rescued from the Rikti by either a supergroup or probably vanguard, he is seeking out the sky raiders to find out what went wrong and perhaps to redeem his fallen comrades. But yeah guys, I'll go traps. the FFG alone will match the theme. I was messing around with the costume creator and i can create the outfit almost exactly except for the helmet. if anyone has a way to come up with the helmet please let me know. and of course ill be using the raptor pack temp power from the shadowshard for theme travel power. but probly also take teleport out of practicality. which is ok since sky raiders port too.Originally Posted by Trickshooter
Traaaps.
BUT... I don't think the Sky Raiders were around before the Rikti War, at least not the way we know them now. -
Hey Gang, So I've been wanting to do a theme character for RP purposes involving a Sky raider who was captured during the rikti war and recently rescued by a supergroup of mine. The basic idea is he would have the sky raider tactics and be used to the gear so he would like like a sky raider, i would go teleport for the travel power but also primarily use a raptor pack from shadowshard as primary form of travel, (i know its slower, its a theme) so i already know im going /AR for the secondary since thats really all they pack. but for the primary should i go traps? or FF? i have pretty much all the other primaries played now as defender, got 50 emp and 50 kin and a bunch of smaller defenders all over the place. but Ive never played ff or traps. traps would make sense as far as the sky raider engineer thing. but FF would allow me to set and forget the buffs establish the bubble and just have fun zooming around on the raptor pack plugging away with the assault rifle. Any feedback would be good. I dont need a build at all, cuz frankly I like to just wing it and see what happens with that. And im really not going to go past Common invention IOs on it since it wont be my main and FF is fine without. Basicly Im just thinking, traps? or FF? I appreciate the input.
-
Depends on what kind of atmosphere you are going for. If you are looking for high lvl raiding and possible pvp elements in an non-rp environment, you could probly seek out Unknown Heroes. Alot of people have problems with them as far as their anti-rp highly structured approach, but they are huge and as far as i can tell, very active. I'm an RPer so I wouldnt join them but if you're interested in very organized activities with structure and a large player base it'd be worth flagging one down and asking for a recruiter. Im not sure if they PVP mind you but i do know from the 5-6 hours i was able to stand being in the SG that they are highly organized, which works well for large events.
-
I really like this idea. I've been having problems lately getting into the RP element and Pocket D is akin to jumping into the deep end of the shark infested swimming pool with a lead weight strapped to your leg and a necklace laden with porkchops. So a channel where i can meet and set up a good RP foundation for my characters story and interact will be awesome. Lemme know how to get an invite to the channel and I'd love to join up.
-
Hey gang! What I'm wondering is, what kind of tactics would you employ in a 1vs1 situation with a Kin/elec/elec defender vs a dualblades/willpower/dark scrapper? I know its really a specific question. But see, It's my wife I'm going to be competing against. She is evil, folks, pure evil. I've convinced her into doing an arena match for laughs since she's always "carrying" my defender when we duo. I'm thinking i should just end drain her with transferance, short circuit, and power sink after hitting her with my stacked holds. but im worried about her popping breakfrees and just destroying my face. It'll be a friendly match, as friendly as it can be between spouses, but I'd really like to win to show her up.
-
Thanks for the quick response! Duels would be fun. Yeah im not so sure about zone pvp until i know how to beat players. Been relying on phantom army to save me too long i guess. heh. So I guess ill start there! Thanks again!
-
I really appreciate the feedback folks. So, the thing is, while ill/anything else would be ideal. my toon i was working on for badges and whatnot is an ill/rad. I just love it in PVE and am knocking out pve badges left and right. does /rad have an application in pvp? I figured the -def -res slow and -to hit from the rad series would help quite a bit in pvp while i could squeeze some decent dps if i went ill/rad/fire for more single target damage. Im not even sure how hard it is to get the pvp badges really. I mean technically if I wanted to make a badge hound I could go fire/em blaster and still pvp decently well. I'm not looking to dominate the pvp world or anything like that. I just really enjoy the shiney badges and know theres a ton for pvp to acquire. Is there a strategy to use when going with an ill/rad/fire? should i use a team for better results?
-
Hey gang! I've come to the point now after playing a little over 5 months to where I'd like to start going after badges. Thing is, none of my friends are into it and it's going to be a solo project. Now really I have only 3 toons that I really enjoy and whom all are lvl 50 or darn close. I have a 50 emp/dark defender, a 50 kin/elec defender, and a 44 ill/rad/fire controller. not really into any of the other ATs enough to enjoy badging them out. Keeping in mind that most of this stuff aside from the TF badges I'll have to do solo, which toon do you folks this would work about best for badging out? I'd like to get as many as possible. Really have something to focus on. Again, I really like playing all three but I really want to focus on only one for the purpose of badging. Thanks for any input you can give me.
-
Hey, I couldnt find it anywhere on the forum and so I'll just ask. Ive got an Ill/rad that i love playing PVE and have a great time hunting badges on him. But I'd like to start trying for the PVP badges. Ive not seen anyone mention an ill/rad in a pvp setting and wondered if it's even possible. It doesnt seem like any of illusions pet powers really assist in pvp since the players are smart enough to ignore invincible pets. I run a build very similar to the one in the controller forums written by Local_man and its great for PVE. Just wanted to know if PVP is a possibility. Thanks for your input.
-
That is absolutely awesome. Wish i could have convinced my wife to dress up my daughter like that. Oh well. Maybe she'll come over to the dork side when she gets older.
-
Quote:Originally Posted by Genesis Man
I would actually recommend Dark Mastery, more so if you like to run into and out of melee (which I assume you do to take advantage of Heat Loss). I say that for several reasons.
Between Dark Embrace and Arctic Fog, you are now resistant to every damage type (sans psi). Build up some defense (through set) if you like, and you'll be a tough-ish squishy.
Layered on top of your resistance, Oppressive Gloom is pure and simply, awesome. The HP loss isn't unmanageable, and the instant-minion helps a lot. It's better when you have another stun to stack, but it's still good mitigation.
Of course, the PBAoE +end and +dmg/to hit powers are also really nice bonuses. I've yet to actually try out Soul Transfer, but am looking forward to using it with my dark/rad defender if my team ever wipes. Instant team-restart in two clicks? Heck yes.
Anyway, I hope that helps... just my two cents.
See? I agree totally on this one. The only thing that would make this perfect for the character would be if we could change the color of APP powers. imagine the cold with white and light blue colored dark mastery powers? it'd be pretty strong theme wise. i was recommending based on usefullness and minimal impact to theme. too bad we cant change APP colors yet. -
My suggestion is to go with the day job power, its easy to get. The great thing about Kin defenders is their lack of reliance on pool powers. They dont need to take travel powers, depending on your playstyle you dont even need to take the fitness pool ( understand im saying "need" alot of people like to maximize slotting etc. im just saying its not totally necessary) which means you can take a bunch of your primary and secondary powers. Most defenders have to pick and choose the couple of secondary powers that they can squeeze into the build after taking travel powers/fitness/leadership etc. Kins dont need that. save the power selections for some crazy fun arrow dispensing satisfaction. it can big a big bunch of fun.
-
I agree that its too bad theres no thematic one for ya. But you cant really go wrong with Power Mastery. Ya get conserve power, power build up, and temp invulnerability. That's solid. conserve power will save your bacon often enough for those clutch deals where you really just need to squeeze out as many powers as possible and you're running out of blues. Temp Invlun is just plain good once slotted and looks spiffy. If you cant find a thematic one, pick a solid one. Just my thoughts on the matter.