Nitra

Originally Posted by Ideon

Originally Posted by Fulmens

OK, if you're interested in Force Fielding, you've probably found The Force Fielder's Bible.

I've been arguing with Philotic Knight for five years... and here's my side of the story. Call it the Satanic Bible of Force Fielding.

1. Don't Do It.
You don't want to play Force Fields. That's right, you don't. I didn't play 133 levels of FF defender because I know some grand secret, I just have a high tolerance for boredom and an appreciation of efficiency. You don't get dramatic last-minute saves. You don't get people thanking you, humbly, when you screw up and let them die and rez them. If you're doing your job right, people take you for granted. All Force Fields does is keep the team from losing, ever. Make a Rad/Sonic. It's better.

2. You ARE a buffbot.
You can provide most of the benefit of being a Force Fielder with four powers, in 25% of your time. Those four powers are: Dispersion Bubble, Deflection Field, Insulation Field, and Maneuvers (from the Leadership Pool.) If the whole team is bubbled, within the radius of the two toggles, and you are not stunned, dead, or in Personal Force Field, you have raised all of them to the Defense softcap from about level 17 on. Blasters are ten times tougher, Scrappers and Tanks are between two and ten times tougher [depending] and anyone up close has mez protection and you don't have to lift a finger beyond that. The only one on the team who is NOT a tank is you. Let me reiterate: If you do NOTHING besides keep the team bubbled and stay close to the guy on point, you are a good Force Field Defender. If you do everything else in your power and do not bubble the team, you are a bad Force Fielder.

3. Most of the rest of the set isn't much to write home about. You have a lot of knockback/repel, one enemy phase/team griefing power, one "Oh s***" and one actual damaging attack.

So why, you may ask, do I do it?
4. YOUR TEAM IS IDIOTPROOF AND INDESTRUCTIBLE. While Rad is a very good set offensively and defensively, and Dark is a very good set offensively and defensively, Force Fields has nothing to go wrong. If you put bubbles on someone, they're at least twice as hard to kill for the next 4 minutes, no matter WHAT. This includes stray Archvillain aggro, Blaster falls down a hole, you fall down a hole, unlucky mez, monster knockback, hitting the "R" key at the wrong time... everything. And if you haven't done ALL of those things, you haven't been playing very long.

5. So what do you do?
5a. Regular buffing. Playing FF isn't tricky but it's hard. If you miss a buffing cycle, people may start faceplanting very fast with no warning. So you just have to be OCD-level consistent in rebubbling. I use a digital kitchen timer and every 3 minutes, I reset it and start rebubbling. Some people use Herostats. Leave "gather" for the Empaths and drama queens. Rebubbling is your JOB and you can do it so smoothly that people don't stop shooting for a second. I use keyboard shortcuts- shift-1 gives you the top person on the team, shift-2 the second and so forth. I have 6 and 7 set to insulation and deflection shields. So my "reshield cycle" goes shift-1, 6,7,shift-2,6,7 and so forth. You get good at it fast.
5b. Relax. This is the thing that makes Force Fields different from any other Defender primary: once you've rebubbled- an eight person only takes 45 seconds- you have literally done everything you can to keep the team safe. If they STILL manage to get horribly maimed that isn't your responsibility. And trust me, even through the considerable protection you provide, someone will still manage.
5c. Don't tell people what to do; tell them why. This one was hard for me. If someone runs off away from the group, and you can't FIND them to rebubble them, don't. Just send a tell saying something like "/t $target, your shields are going down soon." If they want new shields, they can come get 'em. If they die, that was their choice and their responsibliity. I also tend to give a message when I join that says something like "For best results, keep arms, legs and tentacles inside the big bubble. Oh, by the way- it gives mez protection." Last, I tend to be the [passive-aggressive] leader of the split party. I will click on the person I believe should be leader, and say something like "Following $target". People can either come find us and live, or wander off and take their chances.

Again: You give the OPPORTUNITY for people to live forever. You're not their mother. You're not their boss. They have to keep themselves alive.

6. Quick rundown on primary powers:
Deflection, Insulation, Dispersion : Take them, slot them, use them. If you don't like these powers you will be happier playing "not force fields". You may want to 4-slot all 3 by level 17, so you can load them up with level 20 Defense IOs [put in your bid early, get 'em cheap] and defense-cap the entire team five levels early.

Force Bolt: Recommended. Force Bolt is a great power because it is accurate, reliable, single-target knockback. Knockback makes people mad and you are the only person on the team who is NOT a tank. So pick and chose your aggro. It does about zero damage, so don't slot for damage. Slot once for accuracy.

Personal Force Field: The "I escape" button. It is nearly impossible to get killed with PFF up, but you don't affect the rest of the party in any way. If you are dead, you also don't affect the rest of the party in any way. Use PFF to avoid being dead. It requires no slotting of any sort, really. Maybe recharge.

Repulsion Bomb: Recommended. Force Fielders don't do much damage, but this helps. It's a "scale 1" aoe attack that does knockdown- about the same damage as Explosive Blast or Ball Lightning or any other AOE attack. Defenders don't throw up big damage numbers anyway, but this will help a little.

Repulsion Field: Not recommended. This does AOE knockback, but no damage. All this does in my experience is focus the enemy damage tightly on the only delicate member of the team:You.

Force Bubble: Much like Repulsion Field, except it is Repel and Repulsion Field is Knockback. (Don't ask why.) Which means that nearly nobody resists it; but they keep their feet and shoot you while sliding backwards.

HONORARY MENTION: Maneuvers. This only provides around 5% Defense, but the difference between 40% and 45% Defense is, literally, 45% Defense means half the damage. I recommend it.

7. What about Force Field Controllers?

I don't play controllers, so I'm not really expert here. They get about 30% from the bubbles instead of 40%, so they're letting 2 or 3 times the damage through. On the other hand, they have things to do in combat and force fields to recast outside combat, so it might be a good combo.

8. What about soloing?
You don't want to solo. I counted, once, 54 damaging attacks to drop a Boss. That doesn't count Force bolts. It probably died of old age. It's about twice as slow to solo a FF as anything else.

9. What about teaming?
Teams good. Blasters love Force Fields like they love breathing, and for the same reason: they stay alive. So if you're OCD, and the Blasters learn to love the Force Fields, you will never want for a team. If you're building your OWN team, try to get about four blasters and one to three "anything else". Once the blasters pick up on the fact that they can drop as much damage as they like and not die? The team will have a wall of bodies about eighty feet in front and will only slow down for elevators. You can even invite yourSELF to a team, if you do it carefully. Find a blaster in the level range, and ask "Does your team have any use for a Force Fielder?" Be ready to apologize for bothering them, and by all means take no for an answer. If you don't get a "yes" in three invites, go play something else. Adam Smith says: [ QUOTE ]
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest.

[/ QUOTE ] Don't ask for a handout, offer a service. Eventually you may be on the "Friends" list of every high level blaster on the server and never have to ask strangers for a team again. It happened to me; it can happen to you.

10. Any last words?
FF isn't for everyone. In fact, it's for just about no one. If you're not having fun, play something you like better. Have fun.

11. What about Detention Field?
I can't believe you even brought that up. Detention field sucks.

(edited: point 11.)

Originally Posted by Triplash

I did feel a connection to many of them for one reason or another. Too cool a name to throw away, I loved the bio I'd written, good memories of fun times with people I'd met ingame. But it hit me. If I delete the character I can use the same name for the new kid. I can write down or copy-paste the bio. And the memories are attached to me, not the character. None of those were good reasons for cluttering up my slots with characters I don't enjoy playing.

Originally Posted by Local_Man

The old Positron was 66 merits. You can still do the old one via Ouroborus, but it now gives only 40 merits. On the other hand, you can now solo it.

Originally Posted by Turgenev

*ding*

Got the badge last night. 1h41s. Badgewh#*@ team of 7 controllers and one tank (except for one player, these were all our badge toons...). Two runs because the first one had a single death after the green mito phase, and we all were juiced on how easy it otherwise went with our particular makeup.

This ain't an endorsement for the current green mito difficulty, but yeah, it can be done. IMO, I'd rather wait 'til the green mito nerf for my next run.

GL to everyone! See my thread on Freedom for details!

Originally Posted by BlazingTiger

Darn Mitos?

Dear god that may be the best pun in some time.

Originally Posted by Turgenev

It's official. I'm now researching how to knit panties.

(IRL, I haven't got the foggiest clue how to knit, but I actually know three people who do... they're gonna love this email...)

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

I dislike them because I don't personally know enough people who are interested in running one to get on a MO attempt with people I know. Which means I have to rely on PuGs and sign-up attempts, which allow anyone who signs up as long as the "essentials" are covered. These attempts are few and far between, so the failure stings even more, since it may be weeks before I can try again.

I do get ticked off when people die on that stupid tree. I can't count the times I've failed an MoSTF attempt because that one squishy couldn't understand the simple concept of "hug the wall." Random mistakes, brain farts, events outside the players' control, those I can shrug away, but tree aggro is extremely easy to avoid, you know this is a common failure point, you have no excuse.

Originally Posted by Newty

Personally I have distaste for them as I am an empath within TF's. I rarely ever like doing much else. And well I see Mo TF's as.. if someone dies, the blame instantly goes to the empath for letting that person die.

And I hate feeling responsible for a failed Mo-Attempt, really gets to me. aha.

If everything you have ever done since the start of CoX is healing... really gets to you, kinda.

Ill be back soon whilest I go rock back and forth in the corner.

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike

Identical OS?
Identical driver revs?

What I'd do is rip and reinstall the graphics drivers.
Reboot the game on the n/a affected one in safe mode.
Then re-tweak it.

Originally Posted by Jharber

Second question is if I stack stealth and the sprint IO stealth is that invis? I forgot to try that and see, but would it act like superior invis?

Originally Posted by American_Angel

The effect of creating water with Slow Fields is no messed up in Ultra Mode.

The surface is pixelated and looks dirty. The old way looked much better.

Originally Posted by Wanted_NA

Personally, I would LOVE to see a "Master of" badge for every TF/SF that exists in the game (Master of Shard TFs? Whoa!! THAT Would be freakin' intense). And then maybe some accolade for collecting them all.