Mr. Fantasy

My defenders do what I ever I want them to do.

I love my procced out Sonic/Rad to death but before the big IO investments I'de take a sonic blast defender on a team any day. It would taking fixing TF's so that difficulty could be raised before I would change my mind. Visually and audibly Rad is a blast!

I have to second Arch/Mental or Fire/Ice.

An AR/Ice/Force was my first blaster to 50 and is still one of my all time favorite combos in the game and like you I thought I could never find love again! After hitting 50 and pacing the streets for awhile in my AR/Ice glory I leveled up an Archery/Mental which played similar with the no crash nuke and hopping in and out of spawns for the DP/PSW instead of Ice patch. The Archer/mental substituted a little more quick aoe damage for the control that the ice patch gave.

I'm currently playing and really enjoying a Fire/Ice. Like the AR/Ice it has the ability to create a ton of mitigation while dealing significant aoe damage. If you're not bored of /Ice Fire/Ice has the same blastroller feel.

Just a few random thoughts.

With plant you're going to have SoC at level 8, other than AV fights I wouldn't even waste time using LR because slows are counterproductive to confused mobs killing each other. Again I wouldn't waste time with RI outside of tough AV battles or if you're having difficulties landing your powers. EF will boost the damage on your immobs and Creepers so I would definitely use it often. Mobs that can't be confused could provide reason to use RI and LR but with triple stacked AM I would recommend taking your AoE hold on 1 or two of your trollers for total lockdown.

SoC or creepers are your alpha breakers your pets will pretty much just tag along unless you want to spend the time recalling them into a spawn but why bother?

For radios a solo plant/rad can pretty much run at +0/x8 at lvl 22 without much trouble so no def/res shouldn't be much of a concern. The only problem I could foresee is figuring out a way to make the most of 3 plant/rad trollers at the same time.

1. Procs
2. +4 spawns
3. sidekicked or non optimally slotted teammates that can use the boost.

I praise any teammate that can bring to hit buffs or defense debuffs to the party becuse things roll much smoother especially at lower levels.....mid 20's team taking on +3 or +4 Tsoo, yeah debuff their defense please!

Not sure what you're planning to use this build for. Regular teaming? Solo mishes? Farming mishes? solo AV's?

For most solo situations I'd say save yourself a billion influence and use sirens song>DP>Amp and/or Concentrate.howl>psychic scream>Psychic shockwave and move to the next spawn. Pick up your nuke and carry a few blues and simplify the whole task every few spawns. +0s should really be no problem even slotted with SO's.

Teaming Amp and or Concentration Howl>Psychic scream>Psychic shockwave and mop up stragglers DP if needed.

If all else fails grab the fire epic and add RoP to your attack chain :P

I'm with DoctorMike. Rad/Sonic or Rad/NRG.

Rad is by far the friendliest primary of the three for a first time defender that may need to play solo for any lengths of time.

Sonic is my favorite blast set. -res is always useful and sirens call is a great tool for crowd control while soloing.

Energy is just a fun set. Most people will tell you to steer clear because of KB but learn to use the KB's and they'll become a very effective mitigation tool. Having already decided to take flight will make managing KB much easier.

My takes on the 3 I've played.

TA/arch. Great for concept and having either rain of arrows or OSA up every fight is just awesome for consistant high damage aoe's. The only hangup I have with the pairing is archery doesn't offer anything as a secondary effect which is important to me as a defender.

TA/AR. Once again great aoe damage available and very easy to light slicks. For those that can't handle archery because of its lethal damage AR is a nice alternative. Once again the pairing lacks a good secondary effect in return for it's strong aoe's. REDRAW IS NOT A FACTOR!111!!!!! I see this comment time and time again and it's generally from people that have not played the sets together. The bow is drawn at the start of the fight to debuff and the gun is usually brought out afterwards for damage. Occasionally you'll want to or need to switch during a fight but it's hardly the juggling act people make it out to be.

TA/Son. My favorite by far. OSA->Disrupion->Howl is mmm mmm good! The -res from the two sets make it a great force multiplier. Sonic attack is a little weak on aoe but OSA is up quite often and helps make up for any aoe orange number envy you may have.

I play a 48 TA/sonic defender and he's a total beast on teams.

I love the OSA-->howl combo for fast lighting slicks combined with -res debuffing everything caught in the slick. Sirens song is nice in the early levels for setting up your TA debuffs. You can really add a lot to team damage with stacking -res from blasts and acid arrow and disruption arrow.

A very cool, underrated and virtually unplayed combo that you can build in a variety of ways depending what your focus is. It's going to take some patience getting a corruptor up to OSA and EMP arrow but you'll be thankful you stuck it out!

With the drastic changes made to stalkers since their introduction to the game you still refuse to look at stalkers differently? /boggle

Back on topic. I suggest trying out a DB/nin. Very survivable even before you softcap it. Ninjitsu is just a very well rounded set with ample defense and a good bag of tools and tricks to fall back on.

You pretty much nailed the synergy. I found it to be an extremely effective set both solo and teamed. My only turnoff to the combo was endurance management (lots of endurance Taxing cones) though I haven't played it past lvl 38 or since IO sets were introduced which I'm sure would help a ton. With the new difficulty slider I would imagine this would be a really fun combo, I need to get my dark/traps back on the road :P

I was thrilled to see that a patch went out today.......Archery/devices blasters will no longer use the snapshot animation when activating a target drone! All of my characters will do a spin in celebration.... well really just because the mouse makes them shift in circles. :P

I like Ice control because I don't have to take a lot of the powers for a decent amount of control which allows for a lot of build flexibility.

I disliked Ice control on the blueside because controllers toss out aoe immobs left and right negating slicks but on redside there really isn't much concern about immobed spawns.

Get Ice patch in your build asap. On teams place it in the middle of a spawn and your like a little mini troller and while solo place it on a corner and pull to it if you're having troubles. My AR/Ice is level 50 and very well slotted so survival isn't much of an issue but regardless I usually place a patch down in front of me before I do anything else. If anything tries to close in melee range they instantly fail while I place an ignite over top of the patch and reap the rewards.

Also it sounds like you're unsure of your ability to be an offensive juggernaut........ buildup-->FA-->buckshot and/or flamethrower and you win. For bosses ice patch-->ignite and you pretty much win. Put the snipe away deal your damage in cones and aoe and there wont be many mobs left standing to attack back.

If concept isn't guiding your hand force mastery will improve survivability later on and imo is much more practical than munitions as I've never found myself lacking in offensive capability one bit with the powers already available in AR/Ice. If you play on Virtue feel free to look me up my AR/Ice loves to show off

Traps>Devices.

If you're playing primarily with a set group of friends than the team makeup should determine whether Enforced Morale is worth taking over vengeance. I tend to use it only on corruptors which is nice because it's not hard to maintain. Occasionally it comes in handy on other AT's that do not have status resistance to terror.

If your team doesn't really need the status resistance help than vengeance is a great way to go. Charge someone willing to die for the cause into a mob and use your vengeance followed by conduit of pain and enjoy the buffage!

This thread is like flogging a dead horse.

Most good teams don't need heals at all due to control, buffs, debuffs, or a well played brute acting as the agro magnet and in these teams a "pure healer" is useless. The remaining teams that find heals useful usually only need spot heals not a dedicated healer if the "healer" has nothing to do in between spot heals he is pretty much next to useless. In pugs I expect to see the occasional deadbeat healer just like I expect to see the obnoxious tank that insists on "herding" every single spawn or the stalker that "scouts" paper missions and informs the team he found the boss room, The MM with no concept of what doorway his pets are blocking etc. etc.

I've never played a tank where my travel power made a bit of difference. You're a tank just get to the mish in any fashion that tickles your fancy and tank. It boggles my mind how caught up people can get in min/max builds sometimes, really this game isn't that hard......

Mortar is more of a culprit than caltrops for making mobs run. A lot of -def powers make mobs run in my experience.

Besides the brief time when PGT was a proc mule traps has always been an underrated set IMO. Time bomb really needs to be replaced and it doesn't need to be replaced by anything spectacular just something different. It makes no sense to have the tier 9 being an inferior harder to use copy of the tier 8.

I hear that!

I've tried the set a few times and liked the powers but the looks turned me off to the point of quiting the character. Now I can haz spines and still be a slave to fashion!

We're on to your tricks!

Us doms aren't the only people having problems getting on RSF's. The RSF's have issues that I believe will have to be adressed in the near future.

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People who make true statements don't mind being asked to back them up.

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"Since doms have less damage than any other CoV AT, they live and die by whether a team needs a dom's control more than it needs what other ATs can provide."

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Yes please back that statement up because quite honestly I think you're a total liar. I've never had a problem getting on teams. Maybe you just have bad luck or a bad reputation as a crappy dom.