Pyrthas

I don't quite get this, either. Three points. First, if you're soloing "most of the time that you are playing," FF and Sonic might not be the best choices. Especially Sonic—over half the powers are ally-only!

But that's a minor point. A larger point is that your first post suggested that taking the individual shields was a huge sacrifice, and it isn't. It's two powers and four or six slots. I'm confident that there are very few builds that will be severely hampered by losing two power choices and four or six slots.

Maybe you're building and playing your bubblers very differently than I am. For my part, though, my solo and team play is remarkably similar. Solo, I mostly spam aoes and hit soul drain on recharge. On a team, I mostly spam aoes, hit soul drain on recharge, and throw bubbles on everybody once every four minutes. That's honestly not much of a simplification. I used to mess around with the kb stuff a bit, but I could almost always be better served by throwing out more damage, so that fell by the wayside.

And finally, your first post said that you can contribute in different ways to a team if you don't take the individual shields. That's probably strictly true, but, again, all you're gaining are two powers and four or six slots. I'm not at all convinced that that's going to buy you anything really substantial, especially on a team. The point I was trying to make, which you seemed to not address, was that, contra what your post suggested, taking and slotting the shields is only a minor sacrifice when soloing, and a huge boon on teams.

What are you talking about? Losing two powers and four or six slots does not kill solo viability.

Or with weave, maneuvers, cj/hover, gaussian's, steadfast, glad's armor (admittedly very expensive, but within reach with alignment merits; a few weeks of tips and reward merits got me mine, anyway), and a few set bonuses. (You can even get psi in there without too much effort with a couple sets of impervium armor.)

Edit: Just to demonstrate, here's a skeleton of a build. Obviously you could save some slots if you didn't care about the recharge and recovery bonuses on all the defense powers (or didn't want to buy the LotGs). I took Dark just because it has two pbaoes in it; of course that wouldn't be necessary with DP, and of course you could get those set bonuses from somewhere else.

There are, I'm sure, countless ways to do this. This is just an idea.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.92
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Natural Defender
Primary Power Set: Force Field
Secondary Power Set: Archery
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Dark Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Deflection Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(3), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(3), DefBuff-I(5)
Level 1: Snap Shot -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(7), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9)
Level 2: Aimed Shot -- Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(11), Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11)
Level 4: [Empty]
Level 6: Insulation Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(13), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(13), DefBuff-I(15)
Level 8: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(15), GftotA-Run+(17), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(17)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), GftotA-Run+(19), GftotA-Def(19)
Level 12: Dispersion Bubble -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(21), GftotA-Run+(21), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(23)
Level 14: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(23), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(25), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(25), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(27), GSFC-Build%(27)
Level 16: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Tough -- GA-3defTpProc(A), ImpArm-ResDam(29), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(29), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 20: Weave -- GftotA-Run+(A), GftotA-Def(31), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(31), GftotA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(33)
Level 22: [Empty]
Level 24: [Empty]
Level 26: [Empty]
Level 28: [Empty]
Level 30: [Empty]
Level 32: [Empty]
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: Dark Consumption -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(42), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(42), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(42), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), Sciroc-Dam%(43)
Level 44: Dark Embrace -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ImpArm-ResDam(45), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(45), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 47: Soul Drain -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(48), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(48), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50), Oblit-%Dam(50)
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- Empty(A)

Yeah, as someone who mainly plays an FF def, I immediately notice the lack of bubbles when I play my Traps def instead (and that's with FFG and Maneuvers up). Red bars actually go down sometimes! That's no good.

I know FF is overkill some of the time, and if I were to do it over again (and if Cold had been in the game and a defender set at launch...), I'd probably make a Cold def instead. And I certainly wouldn't take /Dark (even if those cones are nice). But for making every pug super safe, FF is still nice.

This is misleading. It's true that higher level enemies have better-than-5% chances of hitting you, but it's not really because they're "overcoming your defense." Everything has a base 50% tohit, except for some new mobs that have 64%. Of course, there are some def debuffs and tohit buffs running around out there, but they're not all that common. Softcapping your team still means that the vast majority of AVs have as low a chance to hit you as possible. (It won't be 5%, because of accuracy mods from any level difference and from being an AV, but it'll still be as low as possible.) You don't start seeing tohit buffs until +6.

How does that work with buffs showing?

I don't have a Sonic/, but I don't like soloing with kb on my FF/. All it does for me is waste time that I could be spending killing things (and screw up my aoes, which wastes more time). Being softcapped to everything anyway makes it safe enough.

Of course, if you're keeping Force Bubble up permanently, you're already screwing up your aoes (unless you're pushing into a corner, in which case kb won't matter), so then yeah, screw it, kb away and watch 'em fly! If you're having fun with it, there's clearly nothing wrong. (Teams are a different issue, but I hope you drop FB and control your kb more on teams anyway.)

From the posts in the BAF feedback thread, it sounds like it's because of tohit.

Not only does TT not have -kb, it's also less likely to keep everything super spread out, even if you're bad, just by being a cone.

I had a happier ending when I was on an ITF with a Bots/FF that kept Force Bubble up all the time. It was, of course, screwing all our aoe and forcing our damage to spread out too far from our support, making our whole team say, "But that's why I got this set!"

The backlash went something like this. First somebody observed that my Force Bubble was up all the time ('cause I was on an FF def, and yeah, that was overkill, but it worked out all right in the end!), and I say it's the MM. Several minutes pass, and someone else mentions it (but doesn't explicitly ask him to turn it off), and he laughs about it and says he stays way back anyway as long as he can see his bots. Several more minutes pass, and someone complains that it's really screwing our aoe, but I guess that's still too indirect for him, 'cause he doesn't say anything. Finally I directly ask him to turn it off, and he immediately quits. But nobody was angry at me about it, and we didn't have any trouble finishing, so it worked out about as well as it could have.

But Electric and Gravity don't have -kb in them, do they? (I've never actually used them; I'm just going by Tomax's and Mids'.) That removes some (though not all) of the drawbacks of Stone Cages spam.

Yeah, sorry, that was a dumb thing for me to say.

I meant that Mids' shows Cold shields being affected by PBU. (As for Mids' and alphas, yeah, they're working fine, it seems, although for these sorts of comparisons, I find it easier to calculate the Nerve def buff with a calculator, because I find it easier to think of it as a single 3.37% def buff (for Cold shields, Arctic Fog, and Maneuvers on a Cold defender) or whatever. Edit: Assuming that 6.67% puts all the powers into 15%-territory for ED, of course. But still, I find it easier to think in those terms for making these comparisons.)

Brief side-comment on the build: Why not swap the slotting between Tough and Charged Armor to get the bigger res enhancement into power with the higher base res?

This is such a good point. Dispersion Bubble is complete junk compared to FFG, because not only does it have a lower defense bonus, but it also costs almost ten times more end!

Hmm, on second thought, perhaps duration/end is not the best metric for comparing clicks to toggles after all. (Especially when we're actually talking about debuffs that only last as long as the mob is alive.)


Edit: I do agree with Arondell and David_Yanakov that it's not crazy to compare Flash Arrow to defender defense buffs (and in the context, I don't think it's too hard to read the comparison charitably and come to the reading that Arondell did), but I also think that it doesn't compare very favorably. The toggles that lose to it on defense also give stealth and res, and of course FFG and Dispersion Bubble stomp all over it. (In many cases (though not all), even Dark Blast cones are better.) This doesn't mean it's worthless, or that TA defenders shouldn't take it. It doesn't mean that David_Yanakov was wrong when he said, "flash arrow slotted for to hit debuff offers rather a lot to my survivability." But whether a TA defender should take FA--whether it substantially helps the TA defender survive--is independent of how it compares to defense buffs that other defenders get.

If you're getting all the way to the softcap from powers alone, Nerve might get you 4% def. (This is what happens to an FF def softcapping the rest of the team with shields, Dispersion Bubble, and Maneuvers.) But that almost certainly won't let you drop a whole power. At best, you'll be able to save some slots on those powers. But those slots won't provide as big a boon as 32.5% dmg or whatever end/rech gains you'll get from Cardiac/Spiritual.

If you're not getting to the softcap from powers alone (and irrespective of whether you're actually softcapping anything), Nerve might get you 2-3% more def (the exact amount, of course, depends on what +def powers you have). That might free up a couple slots, and it might let you reslot 2 or 3 powers. But, again, for most people, those gains are going to be hard-pressed to outstrip the bonuses from the other Alphas.

I'm also not sold on its usefulness against def debuffs or tohit buffs. Either you have lots of DDR, and the debuffs don't make much of a difference, or you have crap DDR, and then 3% more def isn't going to help, because the debuffs are all too big. And if 3% tohit buffs were really common, I'd be all for Nerves, but they aren't.

I'm not actually convinced that Nerves are totally useless. I think the best candidates for them are Cold defenders that don't use PBU (or PB) and FF and Cold secondaries (especially with PBU or PB), like gameboy1234. They're close enough to softcapping their team that the extra 3% will be substantial, but they don't have a way to get all the way to the softcap without it. (Of course, a Cold def with PBU usage like Dersk's should again have no reason to use a Nerve.)

Still, if Nerves are only really useful for people with good but not spectacular team def buffs, one might think that they need to be reworked.

It's a little more than that, at least in my case. It's not just that I'd need to build around the Nerve bonus. It's that I can't build around the Nerve bonus and get as big a benefit as I can if I build normally and use a different alpha, because the Nerve bonus is so minor. (Well, the def bonus is minor, and, as you pointed out in the OP, the acc bonus is useless given the prevalence of acc set bonuses.)

Edit: I think that Cardiac and Spiritual only fare better because it's harder to hit a "softcap" for end usage and recharge. This means that it's easier to reslot and take advantage of better end usage and recharge than it is to reslot and take advantage of better accuracy. Musculature, of course, will only have this problem if you're getting FS (or something similar) regularly.

Yeah, this was my problem. Nerve wouldn't let me stop using Maneuvers to softcap my team (so no savings there), and while it would have freed up a couple sets and would have given me a few spare slots, I couldn't turn those into something better than 32.5% damage. (In fact, I couldn't turn them into anything on the majority of my attacks, which are already slotted purely for damage.)

The accuracy, of course, is a non-issue with set bonuses and Tactics.

Oh, sorry! I misunderstood the implication when you said, "if they're in Maneuvers range" (because Maneuvers has a larger radius than Dispersion Bubble, and also because I still had gameboy1234's post on my mind). It does take slightly heavier slotting to softcap everyone with just Maneuvers and the big three from FF, but it's still doable. (3 common IOs will do it easily. I'm just barely squeaking by at 45.035%, though, with mostly set IOs.)

I do agree about PBU; I didn't bother with it for the same reason. Edit: Interesting point about PB vs. PBU. If Soul Mastery didn't double the recharge on Soul Drain, I would probably consider it more as an alternative to Dark Mastery. But I'm not ready to give up my Soul Drain any time soon (especially because I'm still gonna run my toggles for myself).

Edit: More generally, none of the alpha benefits is really that exciting to me. I guess that comes in part from the way FF works. It's already borederline overkill (especially on a defender), and it doesn't really benefit at all from anything. It's not end heavy (well, it sort of is, but only once every four minutes), it doesn't need recharge, etc. The level shift doesn't even do anything. For FF, I think you can look almost exclusively at your other power set to decide what alpha to use.

You shouldn't have any trouble with this even without Nerve (as long as you have PBU, of course).

I'm with Gargoyle_KDR. My FF def (with no PBU; I still rely on Dispersion) already softcaps everybody (including himself to all positions and psi). I was using Cardiac at first, but once I got my Miracle and Numina's, I was fine without it. I carry a few blues just in case I screw up and bubbles start running out in the middle of a long fight that's drained my end, but so far I've never needed them. (And in my case, there's Dark Consumption, too, even though I only took it as a less useless stepping stone to Soul Drain.)

So I went with Musculature, because an ED-free 32.5% damage buff is better than nothing. The longer duration on Tenebrous Tentacles is better than nothing, too, I suppose.

I did consider Nerve for the 3% buff to all my personal defenses (running Dispersion Bubble, Maneuvers, Weave, and Combat Jumping), but I couldn't find a way to turn the slots it freed up into as big a boon as a global, ED-free 32.5% damage buff.

Just wanted to say I completely agree with everything you said in your posts (based on my whole one month of playing post-def nerf, post-ED, post-IOs, etc. :P), and especially with these parts. Even with FF/Dark, despite the stupid overkill on def and -tohit, I do enjoy the AoEs. Most fights begin with me jumping next to the tank, hitting soul drain, and dropping all three for solid damage (especially with this brand new 45% dmg musculature; even just at 1/2 ignoring ED, it's pretty nice). The softcapped def against everything (3 positions + psi), mez protection, and ~65% (68 with Shield Wall +3 res) s/l res are nice, too, though any defender can easily get the last of those three.

I will say that when I decided to make an alt for dxp, I went with Traps/ partly because I got spoiled by the whole softcapped-to-everything thing. I'm not an altaholic, but if I'm gonna make an alt, I want it to be one that gets to be as in-your-face as my bubbler while still playing support. Long-term, I wouldn't be surprised if the Traps replaces my FF as my main, but I think I'll still enjoy them both plenty.

Edit: And yeah, the "make any pug super safe" is nice with bubbles. It's less awesome on well-organized TFs, but oh well. It's actually still pretty handy for some pug ITFs and STFs and stuff.

Yeah, this. I think Cold can get the closest, actually. The only difference is that you get half the def on your pbaoe, which means you'll probably around 7.5-8% behind FF. Well, you also lose the status res from Dispersion Bubble, and you gain stealth and debuffs and blah blah.

This is misleading. FF defenders are the only ones that can guarantee that the entire team will be softcapped against everything but psi. /FF MMs can't do it (with similar slotting, I think they're a good 10-12% behind a FF/ def, but I haven't done the math for a while [edit: slotted the same as my FF def, an MM gives 33.786% instead of 45.035 with shields, dispersion, and maneuvers]), and Traps certainly can't do it. A full 45% def buff might be overkill in these days of set bonuses (though I'd be careful of assuming that PUGs are always going to be slotted that well), and of course if you can count on having a few other maneuvers/VEATs/pbaoe +def toggles on your group, you won't need to provide it all yourself.

Everything else you say is, I think, good advice for someone whose primary interest isn't softcapping the team (or, again, if you can count on other def buffs always being around).

I will anecdotally say that red bars don't move a whole lot when I'm on teams, and people tell me that they notice a difference (usually having to do with never needing to heal). I don't know whether they'd notice as much a difference if I were, say, a /FF MM. (I don't mean that suggestively. I just really don't know, because I've never played one.)

Anyway, on the FF/Dark topic, while I think that /Dark is overkill and not really necessary, it's what I rolled at launch, and it's what I had waiting for me when I started playing again about a month ago. And the two cones are kinda nice. After trying things out (and learning how sets and ED and everything else that's changed in the last nearly six years work), I settled on the build below. Perks include

• softcapped def for all three positions and psi,
• good s/l res (it's capped if you use a Cardiac Paragon, but now that I've gotten all my +rec enhancements, I'm trying out playing without a Cardiac to see if I still have enough end; if I do, I'll switch to Musculature, and probably switch the Res/Rech in Tough to Res/End/Rech),
• three solid aoes (well, two and a half, since the recharge on Repulsion Bomb is a pain),
• and a fair amount of flexibility (basically everything from level 28 on could be changed, Combat Jumping could be Hover, and you could 5-slot Dark Blast, Repulsion Bomb, Tenebrous Tentacles, and Night Fall to give yourself more freedom).

I'm not crazy about Dark Consumption and its slotting, but I wanted Scirocco's Dervish somewhere, and I didn't want to take Blackstar for it (because I never used it when I had it, because then I had to turn nine toggles back on).

Of course, the order of the powers and slots could definitely be changed up. Especially the slots. They've been jumbled all around while changing the build up several times.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.91
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Francis: Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Force Field
Secondary Power Set: Dark Blast
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Teleportation
Ancillary Pool: Dark Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Deflection Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(3), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(3), DefBuff-I(5)
Level 1: Dark Blast -- Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(39), Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Dev'n-Hold%(39), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Cloud-%Dam(40)
Level 2: Gloom -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(42), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(42), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 4: Personal Force Field -- SW-ResDam/Re TP(A)
Level 6: Insulation Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(7), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(7), DefBuff-I(9)
Level 8: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(9), GftotA-Run+(11), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(11)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), GftotA-Run+(21), GftotA-Def(21)
Level 12: Dispersion Bubble -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(13), GftotA-Run+(13), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(15)
Level 14: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(15), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(17), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(17), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(19), GSFC-Build%(19)
Level 16: Tenebrous Tentacles -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(36), Posi-Dmg/Rng(37), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), Posi-Dam%(37), Cloud-%Dam(40)
Level 18: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Night Fall -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(34), Posi-Dmg/Rng(34), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), Posi-Dam%(36), Cloud-%Dam(36)
Level 22: Tough -- GA-3defTpProc(A), ImpArm-ResDam(23), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(23), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg(27)
Level 24: Weave -- GftotA-Run+(A), GftotA-Def(25), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(25), GftotA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(27)
Level 26: Repulsion Bomb -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(29), Posi-Dmg/Rng(29), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), Posi-Dam%(31), ExStrk-Dam%(31)
Level 28: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 30: Recall Friend -- Zephyr-ResKB(A)
Level 32: Force Bubble -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Teleport -- Range-I(A)
Level 38: Vengeance -- Krma-ResKB(A)
Level 41: Dark Consumption -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(43), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(46), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(46), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46), Sciroc-Dam%(50)
Level 44: Dark Embrace -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ImpArm-ResDam(45), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(45), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 47: Soul Drain -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(48), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(48), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50), Oblit-%Dam(50)
Level 49: Detention Field -- RechRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- ULeap-Stlth(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(33)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), Efficacy-EndMod(5), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(33), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(33)

It doesn't do this. See above.