Happy_Thoughts

My opinion: A very unpolished game.

The storylines are the game's biggest strength, with the crafting system being a close second (you don't sit there chained to a forge; you send your companions out to do things in the background).

However...I find the combat system to be mostly boring, most of the side quests uncompelling, and worst of all it seems like nearly every single quest NPC gives you a version of "you go do my job for me while I sit here."

I have been a long-time subscriber and enjoyer of Dungeons & Dragons Online. The character creation is rather complex, so there's a steep learning curve but also solid customization options. Others in this thread have called it "instanced hell" and maybe I'm just getting stodgy in my old age, but I prefer instanced content over the games where I'm competing with every other player in the area for kills, quest items, loot, etc.

Guild Wars 2 has also been growing on me. It's non-instanced which put me off at first, but most of the issues with open-world settings have been addressed--such as everyone who attacks monster x gets full XP and loot when it dies, crafting nodes are per-player so nobody can grab your resources while you clear the aggro mobs in front of it, etc. Yeah, it's an NCSoft game, I know. I pre-purchased well before The Announcement.

Lord of the Rings Online is a solid choice as well.

I have tried DCUO and have no need or desire to do so again. The character customization (both cosmetic and ability-wise) is terribly limited, and, at least when I played, once you hit level 30 (the cap) you were forced to group to complete content.

I'm not sure I can give a fair review of Champions Online. As someone who loves the Hero System (tabletop Champions rules), I felt very deceived when trying Champions Online. They used the Champions world and characters (which I personally have no vested interest in) and made the gameplay the polar opposite of the essence of the Hero System. Namely, character customization. I appreciate the fact that a computer game can't be as flexible in this area as pen and paper, but nothing based on the Champions RPG should have archetypes or a rigid character path.

Another game that I've enjoyed fairly recently (within the last few years) is EverQuest 2. While it doesn't stand out in any particular way, it's actually a decent game. My theory is that they looked hard at EQ 1 and said, "What don't people like about this game?" and made appropriate changes.

I personally would love some non-fantasy options, but the gaming industry seems dead-set against that.

Knockback suppression and -recharge are why I keep Wide Area Web Grenade on my crab. It's not 100% foolproof as you will get the occasional miss, but it definitely lets you get a lot more use out of Frag Grenade.

Fault is a knockDOWN/disorient and a great mitigation tool.

While true, it's been demonstrated that TA's debuff values are lower—much lower in some cases—than other debuff sets. TA seems to get a wide variety of debuff types at the cost of major reductions in effectiveness for a number of them. To take the debuffs you bring up, only -damage is comparable to that available to other defender primaries. TA's -tohit and -recharge values aren't even in the same league as other defender debuff primaries; in fact, they're inferior to corresponding secondary effects in defender blast sets.

Anchorless debuffing isn't inherently an advantage, it's just different. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, which mostly depend on playstyle. Oil Slick Arrow is definitely sexy, though whether on its own it makes up for the set's shortcomings is a matter of opinion.

The developers have demonstrated that they can make adjustments to powers for one AT independent of other ATs that share those powers. I don't pretend to know the process, and won't make claims to its level of difficulty. But it has been done, so if they wanted to adjust defender TA powers without affecting other ATs I think they could.

The -fly component is fantastic when you need to drop fliers, and with multiple applications you can keep a hard target stationary (and possibly a bit recharge debuffed as well).

My perception is just the opposite. I've got Sparky generating orange numbers for me while at the same time I'm firing off other attacks, so I feel like I'm generating damage faster.

As long as the numbers are orange, it doesn't matter to me if the damage is coming directly from me or from a pet or pseudo-pet. I know this makes a big difference to me because back when Oil Slick Arrow put out gray numbers I felt kind of cheated, even though I knew it was "my" damage.

Storm and Electric Blast, though, has been a letdown since day one. It's a good match thematically but not in terms of game mechanics.

Those are only problems if you let them be.

Radiation Infection has a definite casting time, but there is a delay between when you finish casting and when it causes aggro. I'm rather fond of casting RI and sidestepping behind cover. Enervating Field is a very fast cast so I use it once the spawn gets to me. Well, me and my Choking Cloud, but I'm one of those goofballs who likes that particular power.

And, of course, if you use the biggest target (Lt. or Boss) as your anchor, the debuffs should be up for most or all of the fight.

DP/Rad and DP/Kin are both fine choices! The /Kin will be something of a late bloomer, but the payoff is definitely there.

I find it to be a fantastic pairing. Mine is about the same level as yours (I'm level 25 currently).

How do you have conductive aura and static field slotted? Try to work in 3 SOs' worth of endurance modification if you haven't already. I find the endurance just falls right off of things. Don't be afraid to toss in chain fences as well, that helps!

Only momentarily, then it pulses again and sleeps the bad guys. Another good reason to use chain fences is to keep them from moving off of the field during their brief moments of lucidity.

To be honest I mostly just use this for the debuffs anyway, at least until I get a lockdown proc to put into it. With two single-target holds I can already get bosses held; anything that distortion field holds is just a bonus.

Don't forget that there are other things coming for you soon. Synaptic overload will help your survivability if you give it a few seconds to propagate throughout a spawn, and gremlins will help with damage. Slowed response and, as others have mentioned, farsight will be nice tools.

The important thing though is to have fun. If this character isn't doing it for you, maybe take a break from him for a while.

I'd think that as you approach the later levels, you'd want more attacks--simply because your teammates are more likely to be less dependent on your buffs and heals due to IO bonuses, epic/patron powers and incarnate abilities. If you don't need to keep spamming heals, why not throw in some damage?

There's also the question of what to do if the team has other mitigation like bubblers and/or controllers. Again, why not have some orange numbers flying around if you don't need to be hitting your primary powers so much?

It has 3, one of which is has a 50% knockback on each target which in my opinion is far worse than no knockback or 100% knockback. When I've used explosive arrow I found that it worked at cross-purposes to my other area attacks and location-based debuffs.

There are of course times when you can try to knock things into the location debuffs, but that ugly 50% chance pops up again so even this use isn't terribly reliable.

The fact that soft-capping is possible doesn't mean that every character of every player has achieved those levels of defense, or even will. And it's even less likely they'll have that against every single position and damage type.

They don't pump out large individual orange numbers, but they certainly do a boatload of little ones that melt large groups. And they do it every 10 seconds (before recharge) as opposed to every 60.

FYI the "weaksauce" AOE DPS of dark blast's two cone powers is almost as much (94%) as that of archery using its 3 area powers (ignoring the knockback issues for the sake of numbers), and surpasses archery (107%) if torrent is also used (again, ignoring knockback issues).

The damage proc potential is also greater with dark, if that's your thing.

The real handicap to damage is not having Aim in the set. That's never stopped me from doing sustained, consistent damage and cutting through large mobs of enemies.

Stacking -tohit with attacks and flash arrow.
A reliable area knockback power for when needed (like pushing people into location-based debuffs).
A cone immobilize that keeps enemies in debuff fields, but does not suppress knockdown; if that's not synergy with oil slick, I don't know what is.
An area stun for another control type to add to TA's controllery feel.

These may not be synergies that fit with everyone's play style, but they are definitely there.

You can temporarily switch alignment and unlock a patron. You'll still have access to patron powers when you switch back to being a hero.

HeroStats is your friend.

This.

My defenders have always been capable of incorporating blasting into their repertoire. No special name needed for that.

I think you mean "particulary when the person it is bound to leisurely strolls off into the general direction of another spawn".

I personally like snow storm over quicksand for pulling around corners (toggle it off once things are aggroed, unless you brought a book) and its -fly aspect. The -recharge is just extra yummy goodness.

Inserting the word "more" here muddies things a bit because, quite frankly, it's very subjective. Using your attacks does not inherently mean that you're failing to keep up with your primary powers.

There's also the fact that if a person likes playing with the empathy set and also likes doing damage, suggesting they try a blaster is not only unusable advice, but also carries the false implication that one must choose between being an empath and doing damage.

Polarizing empaths into "constant healing and buffing" and "blasting emp" is an inaccurate portrayal. While there may be situations where "constant" healing and buffing is warranted, in my experience empathy powers do not require 100% of one's time and effort to maintain. I've played with a number of empathy defenders who are able to maintain buffs, heal when needed, and still manage to use their blasts.

If by "blasting emp" you mean an empathy defender who uses both their primary and secondary powersets, I call that a defender. Being able to add damage while also keeping on top of buffs and healing doesn't sound very sub-optimal to me.

If you're actually talking about someone who blasts to the exclusion of their primary, that's another topic entirely and is more a playstyle choice than it is an indication of how using attacks is detrimental to playing an empathy defender well.

You could, but I didn't. It's a silly and irrelevant argument to make.

As has been said, the idea that a choice between the two actions is required is false. A player may, of course, choose to do one to the exclusion of the other, but that's on the player, not the powerset.

I maintain that the secondary of an empath matters exactly as much as it does for any other defender. Exactly how much that is depends on the player.

Of course it's not wrong. In fact, one might even say defenders (even empaths) were designed to do so, since they've got an entire powerset designed for damage.

Ignoring the obviously loaded first part of this sentence (and the fact that the empathy powerset is not available to blasters or corruptors), what if we turned this around to read something like "But if you have an aversion to blasting, do everyone a favor and go roll an /empathy controller." That's actually useful (not to mention possible to do) advice, yet there will be those who will be offended at the suggestion.

It is quite possible to keep up with empathy powers and add to the team's damage*. Any assumption or implication that doing so is sub-optimal is simply incorrect.




* even if one thinks defender damage is "crap," it's worlds better than the zero damage applied by not blasting.

Well, "support" is too broad a word to use. Note the responses so far and see what keeps coming up. Storm on its own can put out a lot of damage, and Trick Arrow has a juicy damage power (though it's on a fairly long recharge). Now realize that both of those sets have -resistance debuffs, multiplying the damage potential of both sets.

I don't even want to talk about the damage proc potential (also boosted by the -resistance debuffs!), as a shirtful of drool isn't very attractive.

I'd go Storm/Storm and issue a written apology to my endurance bar beforehand. All the kaboomy goodness!

The empathy numbers are a little better on defenders, but you're only looking at half of the character. The damage that controllers can prevent with their primary more than makes up for the difference in empathy numbers.

The original poster wanted an optimum team support character with little or no emphasis on damage powers. In that context, I believe the controller with an empathy secondary fits his stated desires better than a defender. But I won't be offended whichever path he chooses.

Except I forgot to actually use any inspirations! I was too busy summoning the shivan and backup radio and watching for Fulcrum Shift and Heat Loss before firing off my Warburg nuke...oh, and constantly switching targets to taunt the nicti and swing my axe at Rommy.

Of course, with the addition of the force field generator I was sitting pretty defense-wise. Like, supermodel pretty, and they were twins. I don't even think I used Dark Regeneration once.

I will say that having a second taunter was tremendously helpful, too. It was nice not stepping in controller.

The best part was that my wife finally got to finish her first ITF (she's the casual player's casual player) and we ran right over to Icon to look at the pretty Roman costume pieces.

Thanks for the great advice, everyone!