SStingray

Intereting set of criteria.

Broadsword/Shield is really powerful solo. However, you run into trouble when teamed with tanks and controllers as they tend to either pull aggro off of you or lock opponents in place, limiting how many you can hit at once with the AAO boosted whirling sword and slice attack. So that might not be good for someone mostly team based. (Although an shield/axe or a shield/mace tanker might fit thematically.)

Archery is actually a pretty good blast set, with a lot of direct damage potential. But you have a lot of choices to pair it up with. Empathy would be a perfect fit for an Angel, but is absolutely terrible solo. Radiation is very similar to Empathy and a lot better solo. However teams tend to steamroll through most stuff before the anchors can be set, so it's ironically very good solo and in small duos or trios, but relatively miserable on large teams. Being a blaster is a good idea, but blasters don't have much defense to solo with, usually.

Perhaps a slightly different approach? How about this one to put the "Fear of God" into evildoers?

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Angel Concept: Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Dark Miasma
Secondary Power Set: Archery
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Psychic Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Tar Patch -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(7), RechRdx(7)
Level 1: Snap Shot -- Acc(A), Dmg(3), Dmg(3), Dmg(11), Dev'n-Hold%(31), EndRdx(36)
Level 2: Twilight Grasp -- Heal(A), Heal(9), Heal(9), RechRdx(43), RechRdx(46)
Level 4: Fistful of Arrows -- Acc(A), Dmg(5), Dmg(5), Dmg(11), Posi-Dam%(17), EndRdx(36)
Level 6: Howling Twilight -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(34), RechRdx(34)
Level 8: Shadow Fall -- EndRdx(A)
Level 10: Hover -- Flight(A), Flight(37), Flight(40)
Level 12: Fearsome Stare -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(13), Fear(13), ToHitDeb(17), ToHitDeb(19), ToHitDeb(19)
Level 14: Fly -- Flight(A), Flight(15), Flight(15)
Level 16: Swift -- Flight(A)
Level 18: Health -- Heal(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(21), EndMod(21)
Level 22: Explosive Arrow -- Acc(A), Dmg(23), Dmg(23), Dmg(25), Posi-Dam%(25), EndRdx(36)
Level 24: Darkest Night -- ToHitDeb(A), ToHitDeb(33), ToHitDeb(34)
Level 26: Blazing Arrow -- Acc(A), Dmg(27), Dmg(27), Dev'n-Hold%(31), Dmg(33), EndRdx(37)
Level 28: Aimed Shot -- Acc(A), Dmg(29), Dmg(29), Dev'n-Hold%(31), Dmg(33), EndRdx(37)
Level 30: Assault -- EndRdx(A)
Level 32: Dark Servant -- Acc(A)
Level 35: Tactics -- ToHit(A)
Level 38: Rain of Arrows -- Acc(A), Dmg(39), Dmg(39), Dmg(39), RechRdx(40), Posi-Dam%(40)
Level 41: Dominate -- Acc(A), RechRdx(42), RechRdx(42), Hold(42), Hold(43), Hold(43)
Level 44: World of Confusion -- Mlais-Dam%(A), C'phny-Dam%(45), Oblit-%Dam(45), Sciroc-Dam%(45), Erad-%Dam(46), Armgdn-Dam%(46)
Level 47: Vengeance -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(48), DefBuff(48), Rec'dRet-Pcptn(48)
Level 49: Mind Over Body -- ImpSkn-Status(A), ResDam(50), ResDam(50), ResDam(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance

That should at least be good at just about everything. It might also be interesting to make a Light Miasma set once issue 16 comes along.

Defenders vs Everyone Else

Ever since I came back for Mission Architect, and especially since 'Going Rogue' was announced, a whole lot of doom & gloom threads have been popping up about how defenders are going to be "obsolete," and replaced by controllers, corruptors, and masterminds. Some of the arguments that have been used honestly had me depressed about being a defender until I checked the actual facts and considered carefully the options. To be honest, sometimes I have to wonder if I am actually playing the same game that these doomsayers are talking about.

Defenders and masterminds are my favorites, but I haven't just stuck with one character. My best 4 characters as of this writing is a level 40 Radiation/Electric Defender, a level 40 Bot/Storm mastermind, a level 28 Broadsword/Shield scrapper, and a level 27 Assault Rifle/Radiation corruptor. I am able both to see the differences in these archetypes by doing the numbers, and feel the difference with actual play (thanks to Architect Entertainment).

Defense

Fulmens has said in a post about defense on the Archetypes and Powers general forum, "The last 5% of Defense blocks as much damage as the first 40%." Honestly I couldn't agree more. But lets take a specific look at what actual defense minded buff/debuff sets can bring to the table.
Leadership:
Maneuvers: 3.5% Defender, or 2.625% Corruptor, Mastermind, or Controller.

Force Field:
Deflection & Insulation shield: 15% Defender, 11.25% Mastermind or Controller.
Dispersion Bubble: 10% Defender, 7.5% Mastermind or Controller.

Cold Domination:
Ice Shield and Glacial Shield: 15% Defender, 11.25% Corruptor.
Arctic Fog: 5% Defender, 3.75% Corruptor.

Given everybody can take leadership, and that these numbers can be multiplied by 1.56 with defense enhancements, total defense granted to their teammates looks something like this:

Force Field defender: 44.46%, 9 times better than nothing
Cold Domination defender: 37.05%, 3.9 times better than nothing
Force Field mastermind or controller: 33.345%, 3 times better than nothing
Cold Domination corruptor: 27.495%, 2.2 times better than nothing

There is an argument that individuals can bring their own defense through power pool choices and enhancement sets. But looking at the actual numbers you need to overcome can be a little depressing. A Cold Domination Defender is about 8% less than the cap, while the non-defenders are 12-18% less. 8% can be covered by a pair of power-pool choices. But for more, you need to be a tanker, scrapper, or brute. Otherwise your best bet for actual defense maxing is a second force-fielder or cold dominator.

Or in other words, you need two controllers or corruptors to equal one defender in defense buffing. I don't see defenders being replaced in this aspect any time soon.

As a side note, cold dominators also bring to the table some good team stealth, a lot of options to slow targets, can cut a specific target's damage in half, and even 30% resistance debuffing, so in spite the big hole in their defense, Cold Domination defenders can be more useful on a team than a force-fielder.

To Hit Debuffing

To-hit debuffing is almost as useful as actual defense. The only real issues is that you usually have to hit the target, and that it is resistible. Unlike defense buffing, the mastermind is actually noticeably worse than even controllers and corruptors. So AT matters a lot.

Dark Miasma:
Twilight Grasp: -6.25% D.(defender), -5% C.(corruptor), -3.75% M. (mastermind)
Darkest Night: -18.75% D., -15% C., -11.25% M.
Shadow Fall: +5% defense D., +3.75% C. & M.
Fearsome Stare: -18.75%d D., -15% C., -11.25% M.
Dark Servant (aka. Fluffy): Pet based -50% total (30% chill of the night, 15% darkest night, 5% twilight grasp)

Not counting the pet, but do counting 1.56 enhancement bonuses, the totals are about: 68.25% to hit debuff for Defenders, 54.6% for corruptors, and 40.95 for masterminds. Shadow Fall almost makes up for the mastermind lack of to-hit performance by itself, except when resistances start coming in to play.

Dark Blast & Necromancy:
Dark Blast: -9.375% D., -7.5% C., -5.625% M.
Gloom: -9.375% D., -7.5% C., -5.625% M.
Life Drain: -9.375% D., -7.5% C., -5.625% M.
Moonbeam: -9.375% D., -7.5% C.
Tenaberous Tentacles: -9.375% D., -7.5% C.
Night Fall: -9.375% D., -7.5% C.
Blackstar: -62.5% D. -50% C.

I'm hesitant to actually add up totals here, as you basically need to keep constantly attacking with these powers to get the benefits. Fully slotting your attacks for debuff means you aren't fully slotting for damage and accuracy, so that can hurt your DPS. But even so, there is enough here to act as a mini-debuff set that any defender or corruptor can use. Even a necromancer can get some real benefit out of this.

Radiation Emission:
Radiation Infection: -31.25% D., -25% C. & C.

Multiplying by the 1.56 for enhancement, we get numbers of 48.75% for defenders and 39% for others. This is almost the exact same situation of force-field defenders vs. force-field controllers and masterminds. Non-defenders have a hole in their to-hit debuffing.

Storm Summoning:
Hurricane: -37.5% D., -30% C. & C., -22.5% M.
Steamy Mist: 5% Defense for D. 3.75% for C., C., & M.

After enhancement, defenders get 58.5% debuff to opponents, controllers and corruptors 46.8%, and masterminds 35.1%. Honestly, Hurricaine is probably not something you should be running on a team unless you're trying to make a safe spot for the rear-line away from the front-line melee. The constant repel, knockback, and blinding visual effects can get annoying really quickly. The constant knockback does make it useful for anyone solo, but there isn't enough reason to pick a defender over a corruptor or controller from Hurricane alone.

To be honest, Dark and Storm defenders probably should feel threatened about being shown up by corruptors, if the AT can be brought over blue-side. However I strongly suspect that Radiation corruptors are should be just as threatened by Defenders going red-side. To stay competitive defensively, a Radiation corruptor may have no choice but to borrow from the Dark Blast set.

But there is one point that may turn things around in the Defender's favor. However, I have had difficulty in confirming it. As I said, to-hit debuff is resistible. That means first that accuracy powers with to-hit resistance (like Tactics and Targeting Drone in PvP) built in can severely reduce what these powers can do. That means that archvillain resistance can effectively all but shut off these powers. That may also mean that level differences can severely weaken these powers as well. To hit debuffers may be just fine fighting at even level. But if you're fighting at level +2 or +3, where powers are 80% or 65% effective, you may need that overkill debuff of the Dark defender to stay over the to-hit cap.

Damage Multiplication

There are generally three sources of damage multiplication available. First is damage buffing (or damage enhancement), second is resistance debuffing, third is recharge reduction.

Damage buffing does have a few hidden surprises in store. It acts as a literal damage multiplier. The base level is 100%, or 1X damage. The hard minimum is 10%, or 1/10th damage. Maximums vary by archetype, and are 850% (8.5X) for brutes, 500% for blasters, corruptors, scrappers, and stalkers (5X), and 400% for everyone else (4X). But there is one quirk I found that can throw a monkey wrench into the math. Damage Enhancements, that you put into a power's enhancement slots, actually count as a single-power damage buff, and not a modification to the power's base damage. That means that most people past level 22 are running around with a base level somewhere between 190% and 199% thanks to damage SOs and IOs.

So, while someone may think a Kinetics defender might be as good as a blaster with all the damage enhancement, reality might be a bit harsh.

At level 50,
Blaster Tier 1: 62.6 base * 195% from enhancements = 122 damage. More with defiance.
Kinetics Defender Tier 1: 36.1 base * (195% enhancements + 25% Siphon, + 50% Fulcrum) = 97 damage.
Kinetics Corruptor Tier 1: 41.7 base * (195% enhancement + 20% Siphon + 40% Fulcrum) = 106 damage.
Kinetics Controller Tier 1: (30.6 base + 30.6 containment) * (195% enhancement + 20% Siphon + 40% Fulcrum) = 156 damage.

Need I say more? Actually, I think I do. But regardless, this is one of the issues that has already put a nail in the defender's collective coffins. You want single-target damage and safety, don't bother with blasters or even scrappers. Roll a fire 'troller. Seriously (almost).

In contrast, resistance debuffing does give out the numbers that it says it does on paper. Most critters have a maximum resistance of 90%, with some exceptions who are supposed to be immune to certain damage having resistances as high as 200%. However, the neutral point is 0%, and the lower bound is -300%. In effect, enough resistance debuffing can triple the damage critters take from attacks. However, debuff rules still apply. Resistance debuffing can itself be resisted, so it is nearly useless against giant monsters, archvillains, and NPC heroes.

Recharge is the third I need to talk about because a couple of set do have recharge buffing options. Maximum recharge is +400%, which cuts recharge rates to 1/5th normal. Minimum is -75%, which cuts recharge to 400% of normal. But although not everyone uses it, everyone does have access to recharge buffing. Recharge enhancements of the SO or IO vareity can put recharge up to 90-99% just like damage enhancements do to damage. On top of that, Hasten from the power pool gives a 70% recharge increase while it is running. There is also another quirk worth mentioning. Recharge reduction doesn't help a bit with activation time. So very fast powers like Radiation Blast and Trick Arrow's tier 1s don't really see a lot of benefit. It's a big help with slow recharging powers, however. Recharge buffing also does not show power differences between archetypes.

Cold Domination:
Sleet: Pet based -30% resistance.

Dark Miasma:
Tar patch: Pet based -30% resistance.

Empathy:
Fortitue: +31.25% damage Defender, +25% damage Controller.
Adrenalin Boost: +100% Recharge speed.

These powers only affect allies, so the Empath in buffing mode will be hard pressed to maintain more than one or two teammates this way.

Kinetics:
Siphon Power: +25% damage D., +20% damage C. & C.
Siphon Speed: +20% recharge with everyone.
Speed boost: +50% recharge ally only.
Fulcrum Shift: +50% damage D., +40% damage C. & C.

Radiation:
Accelerate Metabolism: +25% D., +20% C. & C.
Enervating Field: -30% D., -22.5% C. & C.

To be honest, I would expect Radiation corruptors to be threatened by Radiation Defenders should it become possible to cross the border easily. The extra buffing and debuffing closes the gap between the two offensively, while the extra to-hit debuffing makes the defender a lot safer to solo.

Sonic Resonance:
Sonic Siphon: -30% resistance D., -22.5% C. & C.
Sonic Resonance: -30% resistance D. -22.5% C. & C.

Sonic attack:
Shriek: -20% resistance D, -15% resistance C.
Scream: -20% resistance D, -15% resistance C.
Howl: -20% resistance D, -15% resistance C.
Shout: -20% resistance D, -15% resistance C.
Screech: -20% resistance D, -15% resistance C.
Dreadful Wail: -20% resistance D, -15% resistance C.

Sonic Attack has the same caveat as Dark Blast. The resistance debuffs only work as long as you continue to hit with the specific powers. However, with both the primary and the secondary, the combined resistance debuffs outweigh the corruptor's damage advantage. Defenders are the top with this set.

Storm Summoning:
Freezing Rain: Pet based -30% resistance debuff.

Trick Arrow:
Acid Arrow: -20% resistance Defender. -15% resistance Controller & Mastermind.
Disruption arrow: -20% D. -15% C. & M.

Trick Arrow is a little strange because most of the powers are controls. This means the controller is the best Trick Arrow user of anyone, and not the defender. The defender does get the advantage of extra damage multiplication through Acid and Disruption arrows. However, Sonic and Radiation sets offer more.

Pain Domination:
World of Pain: +16% corruptor, or +12% mastermind to damage.
Anguishing Cry: -22.5% resistance C. & M.
Painbringer: +50% damage C. +37% damage M.

Long recharge times here, however.

Thermal:
Forge: +40% damage ally only, C & C.
Melt Armor: -22.5 resistance, C & C.

Traps:
Acid Mortar: -20% resistance, corrupter & mastermind.

Overall, about the only buff set I can find that doesn't have some sort of damage multiplier is the Force Field set. Just about every other set has either damage buffs, or resistance debuffs. Except for the unusual cases of dark and storm, the defender's resistance debuffs are 33% more effective than non-defenders.

Running that by a Tier 1 comparison like we did with Kinetics is interesting. Take the Radiation set for example, and it looks like this:

At level 50,
Radiation Defender's Tier 1: 36.1 base * (196% enhancement + 25% accelerate) * (1 + 30% enervating field) = 103.7 damage
Radiation Corruptor's Tier 1: 41.7 base *(196% enhancement + 20% accelerate) * (1+22.5% enervating field) = 110.3 damage
Radiation Controller's Tier 1: (30.6 base + 30.6 containment) *(196% enhancement + 20% accelerate) * (1+22.5% enervating field) = 161.9 damage

The difference between a defender and controller's damage with one of the resistance debuff powers is trivial, except in the cases of Dark, and Storm. The one thing the corruptor has going for himself, is the hard-to-measure Scourge inherent, which gives an increasing chance for a critical hit as the opponent's health falls below 50%. The defender in contrast is better able to actually assist teammates in dishing out the damage. Controllers are just plain overpowered, at least on the surface.

Direct Damage

I would like you to open these links in a new tab or window for reference.

Controller: http://coh.redtomax.com/data/powers/archetype.php?at=3
Defender: http://coh.redtomax.com/data/powers/archetype.php?at=4
Mastermind: http://coh.redtomax.com/data/powers/archetype.php?at=11
Corruptor: http://coh.redtomax.com/data/powers/archetype.php?at=13

You may need to scroll down to see the damage set for the defender, but you can see and compare the sets between these four pages.

Defenders & Corruptors:
These damage sets are pretty straight forward. They are effectively the same as the blaster sets, just operating on a different base number. So it is safe to take the Tier 1 comparisons and just scale them to the specific powers when comparing sets. So I can pretty much say the same thing I did above. The difference between a defender and controller's damage using one of the resistance debuff powers is trivial, in most cases.

Controllers:
The big thing with controllers is "containment." As long as the target is disoriented, sleeping, held, or immobilized, the controller does double damage with their primary powers and power-pool attacks. For the early game, this is big. The tier-1 attack out-damages a blaster's tier-1. But how much help is it, really? Looking at the table, while the blast power sets are mostly full of blasts, controllers actually have very few powers to work with.

Let's try to make some attack chains and see what happens. For our blast set user, I'm going to choose Energy Blast, simply because it is shared between blasters, corruptors, and defenders. For controllers, I will choose Ice Control, which isn't terribly different from Stone Control, Fire Control, or Plant Control.

Energy Blast:
Power Bolt: x1 damage, 1s cast, 4s recharge. About x0.2 DPS.
Power Blast: x1.67 damage, 1.67s cast, 8s recharge. About x0.173 DPS.
Energy Torrent: x0.96 damage, 1.07s cast, 12s recharge, 40' cone. About x0.074 DPS.
Power Burst: x2.12 damage, 2s cast, 10s recharge. About x0.177 DPS.
Explosive Blast: x0.96 damage, 1.67s cast, 16s recharge, 15' targeted sphere. About x0.054 DPS.

DPS multiplier total: x0.678
With blaster base at level 50: 42.4 DPS
With corruptor base at level 50: 28.3 DPS
With defender base at level 50: 24.5 DPS

Ice Control:
Chillblain: x1 damage + x1 containment, 1.17s cast, 4s recharge. About x0.387 DPS with containment.
Block of Ice: x1 damage + x1 containment, 1.87s cast, 8s recharge. About 0.203 DPS.
Frostbite: x0.3 damage + x0.3 containment, 2.07s cast, 8s recharge. About 0.060 DPS, in a large AOE.
Flash Freeze: x0.2 damage +x0.2 containment, 2.37s cast, 90s recharge. About 0.004 DPS AOE.

DPS multiplier total: x0.654
With level 50 controller base damage: 20.0 DPS. So where is all the damage? In the pet, obviously.

Jack frost at level 50:
Jack's ice sword: 55.61 damage, 1.67s cast, 4s recharge. About 9.81 DPS.
Jack's ice bolt: 44.49 damage, 1.17s cast, 4s recharge. About 8.61 DPS.
Jack's freezing touch: 99.42 damage, 1s cast, 16s recharge. About 5.5 DPS.
Jack's greater ice sword: 126.79 damage, 2.33s cast, 12s recharge. About 8.85 DPS.

Jack's DPS total: 32.77 DPS
Jack and his master's DPS total at level 50: 52.77 DPS

Forget "Why be a defender instead of a controller?" Ask instead "Why be a blaster instead of a controller?" But in ether case, there is an answer. While controllers do very impressive single target damage thanks to their pets and containment, very few controllers do any real area effect damage. In our examples above: The Ice Controller really only has Frostbite for AoE damage,

Looking at some level 50 AOE options:

Fire Blast Blaster:
Fireball 4.39 DPS
Rain of Fire 2.02 DPS
Fire Breath 5.88 DPS

Fire Blast Corruptor:
Fireball: 2.93 DPS
Rain of Fire: 2.02 DPS
Fire Breath: 3.92 DPS

Dark Defender
Tenaberous Tentacles: 2.90 DPS
Night Fall: 3.31 DPS.

Radiation Defender:
Irradiate: 1.72 DPS
Electron Haze: 2.66 DPS
Neutron Bomb: 1.84 DPS.

Fire Controller:
Fire Cages: 1.12 DPS (2.24 with containment)
Hot Feet: 3.83 DPS Containment only 75% effective. (So 6.70 DPS with containment.)

Plant Controller:
Roots: 1.90 DPS (3.80 DPS with containment)
Carrion Creepers?

When you look at large team battles, where the team is battling 10 to 15 opponents at once, the defenders and blasters start looking a lot more appealing than the one-at-a-time controllers. A good Fire Controller would be as good as a defender or corruptor for AoE mostly due to Hot Feet. But I still feel the Blasters in the party have a measure of job security.

Masterminds:
A mastermind is as bad as a controller without containment for damage. Their powers don't even mez opponents like the controller's do. So alone they are about the worst DPS in the game. However, the true mastermind is never alone. From level 1 they get controllable pets. Past level 32, a mastermind is about 7 characters strong, 6 pets and himself.

Taking a look at one of the most popular sets, Robotics, and reading just the Damage Per Activation numbers at level 50 from the in-game details.

Mastermind:
Pulse Rifle Blast: 5.21 DPS.
Pulse Rifle Burst: 5.08 DPS.
Photon Grenade: 1.56 DPS targeted sphere.
Total 11.85 DPS, 1.56 AOE DPS

Battle Drones:
Laser Burst: 3.25 DPS
Smash: 1.74 DPS
Heavy Laster Burst (Equip): 2.82 DPS
Full Auto Laser: 1.79 DPS cone.
Total 9.6 DPS, 1.79 AOE DPS

Protector Bots:
Laser Burst: 3.13 DPS
Heavy Laser Burst: 3.42 DPS
Photon Grenade: 1.25 DPS targeted sphere
Total 7.8 DPS, 1.25 AOE DPS

Assault Bot:
Plasma Blast 5.10 DPS
Smash: 2.56 DPS
Dual Plasma Blast: 2.08 DPS
Flamethrower: 3.07 DPS cone.
Swarm Missiles: 3.21 DPS targeted sphere.
Incindiary Swam Missiles: Drops fire patch. (It is reported as 19.51 Damage per Cast Cycle, in game.)
Total 16.02 DPS, 6.28 AOE DPS not counting fire patch. (Enemies flee fire quickly if not immobilized.)

Now a level 50 mastermind could have out 3 battle drones at level -2, 2 protector bots at level -1, and an even level assault bot. Against an even level group of targets that means 3 drones at 80% strength, 2 protectors at 90% strength, and a full strength assault. Using a calculator to total the whole mess, the Bot master gets 64.95 DPS, 14.4 DPS in area effects alone. All that is before enhancements, buffs, and debuffs. Unlike the blaster, the mastermind can get buffs and debuffs. Honestly, they do lose more to the "Purple Patch" when fighting significantly above their levels. But a mastermind out-performs blasters and scrappers in damage in the level-range you should be grinding at.

So what's the big deal?

Are corruptors going to invade Paragon City and muscle us defenders out of our jobs? No.

In all honesty, people who want to recruit corruptors over defenders "for the damage" are fooling themselves. The extra resistance debuffing or damage buffing an actual defender can put out is enough to blur the line between defender and corruptor in most cases. So your real choice is this: Do you want someone who is likely to score critical hits against critters who are almost dead, or do you want someone with 33% better resistance debuffing or defense buffing? The choice isn't so clear anymore after the facts are weighed. Defenders may be just as likely to defect to the Rogue Isles and muscle the corruptors out of their jobs.

Are controllers muscling defenders out of our jobs? Yes, but not always successfully.

The biggest threat to the defender archetype is right here in Paragon City already. But it seems to be a threat for all the wrong reasons. Doubling the damage against mezzed opponents sounds like a big deal, and it has been demonstrated that it can push the performance of the Tier 1 power beyond blaster levels. But when you start to take a look at the whole set, instead of just the Tier 1, containment becomes a band-aid covering a severe lack of damaging powers more than the be-all & end-all blaster killer many people make it out to be. In the end, it is all about the pet.

Are masterminds going to invade Paragon City and muscle us defenders out of our jobs? Well...

As is, I consider the Mastermind a threat to everybody's jobs, especially the scrappers and blasters. But less so for defenders than anyone else. Outside of force-fields and traps, the mastermind's secondary power attributes make corruptors and controllers look good. But it is instead the inherent advantages and the pets that make the mastermind great. The combined mastermind and pet attacks out-blasts blasters, while bodyguard mode gives a 75% resistance to damage to the mastermind for free, and the mastermind just happens to get a little bit of buffing and debuffing on the side. But with the limited secondary power choices, a mastermind would likely appreciate having a corruptor or defender along to make everyone better, or at least provide some variety.

What more is there to say?

My pattern is:

1-11: Nothing.

12-21: DOs bought from Archtect Entertainment. Frankly, the AE ticket system makes it easy to just start from level 1 and go to level 14, 15, or even 20 just updating DOs by spending tickets instead of Inf. You may not be getting as much Inf from salvage, recipe, or enhancement drops. But you aren't spending any either, except maybe at the Tailor.

22-50: Common level 25 and 30 IOs are the same as SO. But they never expire. Just like SOs, you can start putting 25 IOs in at 22, and compared with replacing your SOs every 5 levels, the cost savings are huge. Once you have your basic IOs in, all you really need to do with your Inf is save it for your eventual invention sets.

35-50: I started buying and building my first sets close to level 35, or perhaps 32. Basically, as I was able to afford them from the market. Not all of my Common IOs are getting replaced, as not all of my powers have a set that is worthwhile to slot. But I do have Thunderstrikes and Devestations in my targeted attacks, Positron's Blast in my AoEs, and so forth.

They way I did it, I was set on budgeting my money to get the good sets early rather than maximize every point of enhancement every level. I wanted the good sets as early as I could get them instead of waiting until level 47 for the "perfect" set. Putting up with a couple percentage points less in the early levels was actually pretty easy to do. Nothing in the low or teen levels is all that difficult, except the elite bosses.

But that's just me.

I have observed as a Bots/Storm tankermind (complete with Provoke) that the minions stop firing if the target isn't attacking frequently. That is pretty easy to set up between Hurricane and a good corner. As a workaround, I order the Assault Bot to attack a specific targets while keeping everyone else in bodyguard mode. That keeps 5 of my minions still protecting me while the assault bot mops up the remains.

Bodyguard mode doesn't apply if the minions aren't in follow-defensive mode. So it's a big risk to tell all of them to attack specific targets.

I play a Rad/Electric blue side, and a Bots/Storm red side. There are a few quirks to the combination, but I think I can make a few educated guesses. Also, this might be a good read:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=114618

As for my opinions:

Of the first two power choices, Gale is more useful than O2 solo, but frankly Gale is barely useful for pushing stuff onto burn or freeze patches, and quickly obsolete. Frankly, if I had the choice, I would still be taking O2 over Gale for those rare times that teaming is necessary.

Snow Storm and Freezing Rain mostly do the same thing, they slow the movement and recharge of opponents. But Snow Storm is a toggle, and Freezing Rain is a summoned patch that lasts 15 seconds, and debuffs for 30 seconds. Even with the reduced performance Masterminds get from the toggle sets, I actually found myself respeccing out of Snow Storm and using those enhancement slots to put 3 slows and recharges into Freezing Rain. It is easier on the endurance.

Hurricane is a massive to-hit debuff in the hands of a Defender. Even without that, anything in range gets a 5% chance of being knocked down, 4 times a second. So between that and freezing rain, an opponent can be knocked down so often that he doesn't get any chances to approach or hit you. That is excellent for your survivability. The only issue is that you'll need Stamina and a lot of endurance reducers to have any endurance to actually attack with.

Tornado and Lightning Storm are both rather interesting. They are both big damage powers that summon entities to do damage for you. Tornado is its own worst enemy. It does little damage per tick, but ticks very fast. Unfortunately, it also does some extreme knockback, so often foes go flying before they take significant damage from the tornado. Lock down the opponent with Electric Fences or an Earth Controller's powers, and the tornado can shred opponents quickly. Lightning Storm is more manageable as it simply lightning-bolts anything in the vicinity for heavy damage about once every 4 seconds. It does knock back. But since the storm is immobile, the knockback is predictable, and you can use your hurricane to push opponents right back into the middle of the storm. Unfortunately, it's a disadvantage having the storm immobile as well. You simply can't move it by any method short of resummoning it at a different location. The storm is untargetable.

Electricity seems to match well with Storm Summoning with one exception, Short Circuit. With Hurricane going, it actually gets really hard to get near enough to anything to use a melee attack or PBAoE. So if you want to use Short Circuit, you need to turn the Hurricane off for a bit. Other than that, Voltaic Sentinel acts a lot like a mobile lightning storm without the knockback. So that gives you a third pseudo-pet to wreak havoc with.

Overall, it feels like it could be a powerful high-level combination. But the low and mid levels can be a bit sucky because of the available power choices. You may be using a respec or two along the way no matter what you do. Hurricaine, Steamy Mist, and Freezing rain are the best powers of the set for the mid-levels, and that leaves the low levels with little choice other than O2, Lightning Bolt, and Ball Lightning if you don't want redundant powers.

It's kind of a strange set to work with that doesn't have a lot of good options. But it can be made to work really well with patience and dedication.

Wow! Someone is willing to try electricity except me? I was beginning to think I was alone.

I think I can help you somewhat, but you're still going to have to make some decisions on your own. What I am posting here is a Mid's record of where my own main character is at currently. To be completely honest, I made a proper plan, but managed to completely ignore it as I was leveling up by adding slots to whatever I felt needed the most improvement at the time, and just plain forgot to update my file in the Hero Designer. So please ignore the levels by the enhancement slots, for now. As is, it's more of a "respec" build instead of a leveling build.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Nene Misaka: Level 37 Science Defender
Primary Power Set: Radiation Emission
Secondary Power Set: Electrical Blast
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Flight

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Radiation Infection -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb(3), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(3)
Level 1: Charged Bolts -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(11), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Dev'n-Hold%(17)
Level 2: Accelerate Metabolism -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(5), RechRdx-I(5), EndMod-I(7), EndMod-I(7), EndMod-I(9)
Level 4: Radiant Aura -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(9), Heal-I(11)
Level 6: Maneuvers -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(27)
Level 8: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(34), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 10: Short Circuit -- Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(17), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(19), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(19), Dmg-I(21), Dmg-I(21)
Level 12: Lingering Radiation -- TmpRdns-Acc/Slow(A), RechRdx-I(13)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Run-I(A)
Level 16: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 18: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(36), EndMod-I(37)
Level 22: Ball Lightning -- EnManip-Stun%(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg(23), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(25), Posi-Dam%(27)
Level 24: Hover -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(37), EndRdx-I(37)
Level 26: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(33), EndRdx-I(34)
Level 28: Tesla Cage -- Para-Acc/Hold/Rchg(A), Para-Acc/Rchg(29), Para-Hold/Rng(29)
Level 30: Lightning Bolt -- Dev'n-Hold%(A), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Thundr-Acc/Dmg(31), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33)
Level 32: Mutation -- RechRdx(A)
Level 35: Voltaic Sentinel -- Dmg-I(A), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(36)
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx(A)
Level 1: Vigilance

I think it shouldn't be too hard to start tweaking this to something you might like. I made some honestly unusual decisions in my build. I have been somewhat debating if I should have taken Enervating Field at 24 or 26 instead of Assault or Hover. But considering I can still take it at 38, I might not use a respec on it. You might notice too that Charged-Bolts was my only single-target attack until level 30, where most others would have taken Lightining Bolt at level 2. Most of my leveling has been on area-effect powers that can tackle up to 16 targets at once, with Haste and Accelerate Metabolism to cut recharge in half. So Lightning Bolt didn't make a lot of sense at low levels. But others might feel differently.

Do you have some questions regarding what I did or why?

[ QUOTE ]

SStingray

A good post, well thought out. Thanks.
As I say, if the debuffing sets and damage boosting sets are working well, then it's the defense sets that need looking at. As I said before, perhaps the solution is to allow self-buffing? Certainly, it might require some rebalancing, but it would help solo Defenders.

(this also applies to Panzerwaffen's post)

Making the class weak solo because he can help other people more smacks of bad design to me. As I said before, why would I want to play if my only purpose is to make someone else's game more fun? I want to have fun too. Every other AT brings something to teams, and none of them suffer solo as a result of that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why someone would be willing to play an AT that stands in the back and simply helps others earn all the glory is not an easy question to answer. But "greed" is a good starting point.

A minion killed by an 8 man team is worth twice the XP of a minion killed solo because of team bonuses. That XP does get divided up among the team so it seems like less, but at the same time, the number of mobs spawned by an instance is adjusted up. On that same note, a lieutenant is worth about 3 times the experience as a minion, and a boss is worth easily 10 minions in experience. But neither has 3 or 10 times the HP as a minion. So if your team is large enough for the instance to be spawning lots of lieutenants and a couple bosses in random groups, that is a huge boost of experience and influence compared to the soloist's usual 3 minions at a time. Frankly, it can be a lot of work to set up a large team. But these team support specialists make hunting safe and easy, and the whole team get paid very well for the work.

So why are you soloing all the time when you can be earning five times the sweet, sweet XP and Inf in a big team? (Before you answer that let me admit that I do a lot solo, too. So I don't really need an answer.)

Before you go much farther with your Forcefield/Energy "soloist," you might want to ask yourself what you really want to do for fun. I think if you really want to be able to wade into a group solo and come out unscathed, you may find it much more fun to play a stone or shield Tanker. If direct massive damage to enemies is your thing, you want to be a Scrapper or even Blaster.

While Defenders may not be your cup of tea, the fact remains that they are rather popular, even in spite the nerfs and difficulties. Class balance is, oddly, defined by popularity and not real power. So it is unlikely Defenders are going to be getting any boosts until people stop playing them.

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I'm told the Devs have described the Defender as the best balanced AT. I'm forced to wonder at this. Consider the following.


I took my Defender and my Scrapper through the SAME mission, my AE World War Two arc. Both characters are L22 and fully slotted with SOs. Their attacks are all similarly slotted (1 acc, 1 end, 3 damage). The main foes are German Soldiers with 200.0 health.

The Scrapper (MA/Shield) walks easily through the missions. The Defender (FF/EB) is constantly in desperate condition. Why?

(... snip ...)

It seems pretty plain that the Scrapper has VASTLY more health, more defense and more offense than the Defender. The Defender is expected to overcome the same challenges as the Scrapper, yet he is significantly hindered by his lesser abilities.

This puzzles me, because the usual pattern is to compensate for lack of offense with increased defense, or vice versa. The Defender has lesser defense AND lesser offense, with no benefit to himself.

Now, the obvious argument will be that the Defender is "intended" for team play, but that is sophistry at best. ALL characters are intended for team play, yet only the Defender suffers for this.

I've said it before, and I say it again. Defenders need a boost in damage output or defense. It has to be one or the other. They can't continue to be the second class heroes they are at present.

[/ QUOTE ]

This whole thread is hard to read, so I might end up repeating something that someone else has said. But I think it's important to say it anyway.

Coming out of Beta and into I1, Defenders used to do similar damage to Tankers. But as the first live players were getting to the level cap, an unfortunate pattern emerged. Kinetic and Radiation defenders were able to self-buff their damage output to be on par, or even superior to Blaster damage, so Blasters were quitting in their 20s and 30s to re-roll as Defenders to take advantage of the Defender sets. This led to the majority of level capped players being Defenders and level 40 Blasters were practically unheard of.

At the time, the developers weighed a number of possible solutions, but what they decided to do to correct the imbalance between classes was extreme. The base Defender's "blast" attribute got at 25% nerf, and the Blasters started picking up damage boosts. I remember that time clearly as it was when I retired my very first character, a radiation/energy defender, in her 20s in complete disgust. It's ironic that I've come back to playing a radiation/electric defender and loving it.

Although it was a painful time for me, I can't help to admit that what they did actually worked well. Trying out the other ATs was a good experience for me, even though I never could get in to any of them, except the Mastermind. (But that's a different story.)

I believe one of the other posters at least started to mention this. But by design, buffs and debuff from different characters stack fully. I'll give you a couple examples. Deflection shield gives a base 15% defense to smashing, lethal, and melee for two minutes. With proper slotting, this can be brought up to 23.4% defense. If you cast this on a teammate twice, they won't stack and the teammate would still have 23.4% defense. However if another forcefielder came along and cast this on your teammate after you did, they will stack, and the teammate now has 46.8% defense, which is beyond the soft cap. Same thing applies to Dispersion Bubble. Slotted properly, Dispersion bubble provides 15.6% defense to the entire team. So two Dispersion bubbles from two different forcefield defenders can double up to 31.2% defense, and three would give everyone 46.8% defense, which is beyond the soft cap.

Because the soft-cap is so low, forcefielders tend not to get along well with each other. But it is not the case for other defenders. Sonic Siphon from the Sonic Resonance set will directly debuff an enemy's resistance by 30%. Meaning that attacks against the affected target do 30% more damage. Solo, that is still about 25% less damage than a blaster can do without help. But teamed with one other sonic defender, and things get interesting. Both sonic defenders can bounce a disruption field off each other to debuff the enemy another 30%. With each defender now debuffing the enemy 60% and with two defenders, the enemy is now down 120% resistance. The two defenders working together has a damage output close to 2.5 blasters. Add a third sonic defender, and the enemy gets 180% debuffed, and makes the 3 defenders worth about 4.8 blasters in damage output.

Even self-buffs for damage and resistance work similarly. Siphon Power from one Kinetics defender will boost everyone's damage 25%. That means two Kinetics defenders can boost everyone's damage 50%, and 3 Kinetics defenders can boost everyone's damage 75%. Fulcrum Shift also carries a 50% damage booster, so that one Kineticist can sometimes boost everyone by 75%, two by 150%, three by 225% and so on.

So here is the real deal. Cryptic (well before they sold the whole mess to NC Soft) has had little choice but to make Defenders weak solo to balance the fact that their buffing and debuffing abilities make them much more powerful in teams than simple blasters, scrappers, or tankers. Comparing a Martial Arts/Shield Scrapper with a Forcefied/Energy defender in a solo mission is no contest. If nothing else, the Force Field powerset is a bit of a lemon. If you don't learn to use knockbacks properly, you'll be having a really hard time of it solo. On the flipside, the Forcefield Defender is the only one able to soft-cap the defense of an entire team by himself, properly slotted. If you can use your alternate build for a team setup and run the mission again with a pickup group 6 or 8 members strong, you should see some dramatically different results.

Some of us old experts take delight in finding uses for power-combinations that close the gap between us and other archetypes when soloing. But even in the best case, we are never more than second best until we start finding teammates to help. If you really can't live with that, you may just want to abandon your defender and concentrate on your scrapper.

I must admit, even though I feel a bit late in posting, this thread has been in the back of my mind for a couple of days. I play as a Radiation/Electricity with the Leadership pool, so I think I might have something worthwhile to share.
There isn't actually a lot of difference between a solo-build radiation and a group-build radiation. What really tends to make the difference is group awareness.

Accelerate Metabolism (with Hasten) is very infamous for turning Defenders into Blasters for the two minutes it is up between the speed boost, damage boost, and endurance recovery. However it also does a good job of turning Tankers into Scrappers and really super-charging the DPS of actual Blasters and Scrappers. The hard part is actually going to be getting the team to gather every 3 minutes or so for the buff, as they need to be pretty close to you when you trigger it to be affected. So a lot of other Radiation users I've met have a macro that announces something to the effect of "Gather for buffs."

Radiation Infection from a Defender will debuff To-Hit up to 48.75% with 3 slots of SO or IO enhancements. But the soft-cap gets hits at 45%. Any actual defense on top of that is wasted, according to theory. In practice, however, your team is only defended against your Infection anchor and those enemies within 15 feet of that anchor. So if something gets knocked out of the zone, runs away, or if the group simply started spread out enough, then you are going to have enemies at their full accuracy unless your team has some actual defense. Maneuvers in these cases is good insurance. But honestly, people probably aren't going to notice if you turn Maneuvers off to conserve stamina.

Assault is actually very good. From a Defender, Assault gives an 18.75% bonus to damage at a cost of 0.39 endurance per second (Eps). The damage isn't buffable, but the endurance cost can be reduced, 3 endurance reducers can bring it down to 0.20 Eps. Since this gives extra damage to the whole team, there isn't an excuse not to keep it running if you have it. Yes, this does stack well with Accelerate Metabolism and Enervating Field.

Unless you want the extra team perception for some reason (PvP or a smoke-bomb countermeasure) it is not worth taking tactics as a Radiation Defender. Your Radiation Infection gives a -25% to the targets Defense even unbuffed, not to mention what your Radiation Blast set is doing. Your team is going to be hitting the other soft-cap at 95% to-hit either way. So tactics really only gets your team extra perception and not much else. But this only applies to Radiation Defenders. I would expect other Defenders to take it and love it.

I do hope this helps.

[ QUOTE ]
Me and my friend are thinking of starting to play and will mainly be playing together just us 2 unless we find more to group with. My question is what would be a good duo or combo of Archetypes that would work with each other and do good? we havent chosen a side either so take a stab at either.

Thanks!

[/ QUOTE ]

The two parts of a good team are Damage Output and Damage Control. In other words, you want to do as much damage as you can to the opponent while preventing or curing as much of the damage to your team as you can. To this end

Damage Output ATs: Scrapper, Blaster, Defender
Damage Control ATs: Tanker, Controller, Defender

Pick one from the top row, and another one from the bottom row, and you've got yourself a good Duo combination, usually. You'll have to be careful of your own and your partner's build choices if one of you is a Defender, since they can go either way. But otherwise you'll be fine. Yes, Defenders do very well with other Defenders, so that is a good option.

Some other odd combinations that work: Scrappers are usually very good solo since they have their self-armor sets. So two Scrappers in a team of two gets the job done. Tankers can also do very well with Controllers if the controller sets his secondary powers correctly. Kinetics, Radiation Emission, Sonic Resonance, and Thermal Radiation have options that can push a Tanker's damage output up to scrapper levels. An actual Scrapper up front might be better for damage output, but the tanker and controller team tends to have enough DPS to get the job done with very little being able to get through the combined damage control.

For the Villain side, things get even easier. The only thing you don't want to do is to pair a Brute with another Brute. Otherwise, every redside AT is roughly evenly balanced, so while Corruptors and Dominators usually need a team to do well, it almost doesn't matter what AT the teammate is. You just need to revise your tactics somewhat with certain combinations.

Hope this helps.

Wow, I might just be convinced to try the Stalker again myself if I didn't already have 5 characters I'm actively working on.

I would recommend against Dual Blade unless you're really looking for an AoE set with the stalker. Dual Blade's weakness is that you typically need to chain 3 moves together to get a special effect. One of the moves miss, and all you do is basic damage. Fortunately, for 2 of the 4 combos has your basic starter using Build Up then Assassin Strike, which makes it much easier to get a sweep or empower triggered. Unfortunately Build Up is usable only once every 90 seconds without recharge or Haste. The other side-effect of the combo system is that there are very few "skippable" powers in either the Dual Blade or the Ninja set. If you want stamina, you are going to either be without a travel power or making a very hard choice of which combo you want to sacrifice.

I'm not seeing too much different between electric and energy attacks until the high levels, so I can't really call them either good or bad.

Another possibility to consider is Ninja Blade/Ninjutsu. The level 18 attack, Divine Avalance doesn't do a lot of damage by itself, but on a successful hit, improves your melee defense with a +15% base for 10 seconds. Combine with Ninja Reflexes melee defense, and 6 SO or level 25 IO Defense enhancements (3 in each power), and your melee defense gets soft-capped as early as level 22, cheaply. Divine Avalanche is up every 4 seconds, so you don't have to worry about downtime, except at the very start of the fight.

I recently tried to do a numerical study in response to a different thread. So I can at least describe the mechanics.

Critters have a base 50% chance of hitting you if they are anywhere between even level and your level +5. However after defense and to-hit modifiers are applied, the result first capped between 5% and 95% multiplied by accuracy modifiers, and then capped between 5% and 95% again. As an example, if you were fighting a lieutenant +2 levels to yourself, their base accuracy becomes:

50% * 1.15 lieutenant accuracy * 1.2 level accuracy = 69% hit rate.

Get 45% defense and the formula looks like this:

(50% - 45% defense) * 1.15 * 1.2 = 6.9% hit rate.

You would be taking 1/10th the damage you would be taking without defense. If your opponent used Build Up, then for the next 10 seconds:

(50% - 45% defense + 20% to hit) * 1.15 * 1.2 = 34.5% hit rate.

Yeah, build up is that dangerous.

From what I have experienced, having that 45% soft-capped defense or similar to-hit debuff is almost required for lieutenant farming on a team. But you can't quite get away with just defense alone. You are going to need at least some level of resistance, healing, or control on top of that to truly stay ahead of the game in even a medium sized team. But if you are solo or on a small team fighting no more than roughly 3 at a time, 45% defense should be fine, barely.

I have been finding myself having more fun red side than blue side for the most part, as long as I don't read too much into the mission texts. It does sound to me that if you are used to blastrolling, then the Dominator should be right up your alley. Their damage output is around Tanker level until you hit the Domination zone, where your damage output gets a 75% boost for 90 seconds (200 seconds recharge, less if Haste is invested in). So while control is first, and blasting second, Dominators ultimately are blastrollers with a full control set. But honestly, I have little actual direct experience with them. I never got one out of the teens.

Stalkers are the other thing redside I never got out of the teens. There seem to be a fair number of them visiting the market on occasions, but I don't seem much of them. However, it looks like if you want the damage output of a blaster natively without resorting to self-buffing powers or tricks, the Stalker is your only option. But the whole Stalker package is unique to the Rogue Isles so far.

Stalkers specialize in attacking from stealth, dropping back in to stealth, and doing it again. They can assassinate a lieutenant or a boss very quickly like this. But they are pretty much limited to two actual stealth attacks per minute before haste and recharge slotting (which recharge going into Placate). Until they can get back into hiding, they are scrappers with less hit points. Minions are actually more of a threat to stalkers than they are to other ATs because they can potentially hinder a Placate & Assassin combo if they aggro onto the stalker after the first Assassin strike.

Since you said you have a rad/rad Corruptor in the 20s, it doesn't sound like I have anything to tell you that you don't already know. Damage wise, AM and Scourge does push the corrupter up to blaster levels. Problem is, with the weaker debuffs, I feel almost as squishy as a blaster. Between my Assault Rifle/Radiation Corruptor and my Radiation/Electric Defender, I have to say the Defender is more fun, even with the lower DPS. But that may be just a bad power-slotting choice, or even just my personal preference.

I have been recently leveling up a Dual Blade/Willpower Brute and a Broadsword/Shield Scrapper at the same time. To be honest, there isn't much beyond the individual power sets different between them in play. The one thing really different is a result of the Fury system. As a scrapper (and frankly, as a Defender, Corruptor, Mastermind, etc. etc) slotting for anything other than 3 damage first in the attack powers seems like sacrilege. Anything else has you choosing between DPS and DPE when Damage covers both at the same time. But the fury system on the Brute feels powerful enough to build around. At least in the teen levels, I have found good reason to start slotting attacks for recharge to build fury quickly, and endurance to maintain it as long as possible without gasping for breath. So the damage enhancements have been swapped out on my Brute for a bit. But Stamina and Quick Recovery does change that game, too.

I know you ruled out the Mastermind earlier, but honestly I found the Mastermind a real treat, and the other nail in my corruptor's coffin. My first was a Robot/Dark. My current one is a Robot/Storm. Basically, once the pets are out and upgraded, I can use my full endurance bar just locking down opponents with the secondary powers while my pets have their own bar of endurance they can use simply to attack the target. The combination is proving to be really powerful, and my Bots/Storm Mastermind is my most successful character so far. I think you might like being a Mastermind with a Dark, Traps, or Storm secondary if you are at all tolerant of a little bit of macroing.

[ QUOTE ]
Hi:

Finally getting more experienced in developing MA stories, and have got o the point I am tinkering with Allies.

In the MA Editor, when I call for an ally, I get a choice for Ally behavior, that is do nothing, pacifist, defensive, aggreesive, etc.

Can someone tell me or point me out to a place, where it define what these settings means?

Thank you

Stormy

[/ QUOTE ]
As for where you can find the information. The small question mark can call up a tool-tip that explains the settings. If your tool-tips were turned off at some point, you do need to go into options and turn them back on to see them. But they are there.

As for the ally settings:

Aggressive is just that. The ally will attack any opponent he detects, and generally won't stop until either all the opponents in the area or the ally is defeated.

Defensive allows the ally to fight, but the ally will be concentrating on sticking close to his escort (if set to actually follow the player). Opponents generally won't be attacked unless they come into attack range.

Passive allies do nothing. They won't fight or even use their powers. They can still be targeted by enemies and be defeated, but that shouldn't matter unless the ally is part of an Escort objective instead of placed as an ally.

Non-combat allies are the usual default for escort objectives. They act the same as the passive setting. However they will not be targeted by enemies or hurt by area attacks. About the only way I have found to hurt a non-combat ally is to drop him from a high place.

I think that is pretty much it for ally behaviors. Any questions?

[ QUOTE ]
Hello all,
I’m new to making MA mishes and need a little help.
I'm trying to make a mission that will challenge 3 scrappers, (me and my brothers).
Not Uber IO'd to the max scrappers, just a team of 3.
I’m trying to get it to have the feel of the "House of Blue Leaves" scene in Kill Bill when the Crazy 88 swarm in.
But to be honest while I want a challenge and to be able to have bodies in piles, Its not important that we succeed (theres no next scene we have to get to) The night of 1000 knives should be about the challenge to prevail against odds that make a scrapper pause for a a full nano second ("wow that is a bunch of angry looking guys with swords") before jumping in and in a flurry of scrapper madness.

[/ QUOTE ]

Getting quantity over quality is not an easy thing to do in either Architect or the game proper. Typically, to get more enemies, you need more players. But a couple of ideas do come to mind.

First, set your Notoriety to 2 (Tenacious) or 4 (Unyielding). That will cause spawns to pop in as if you had an extra teammate in your team. Second, as has been mentioned, make your ambushes set to Hard. That also increases the size of the incoming ambush.

Something you might want to try in test-mode, to see if the idea fits, is to create a "boss" battle against a custom weak boss or lieutenant, and create 4 hard ambushes tied to 3/4 health, 1/2 health, 1/4 health, and boss defeated. If the "boss" goes down quickly enough then all four of the ambushes could be triggered before the first actually arrives and you might be fighting all four ambushes at once. That could get that scrapper group to pause for a second.

Can't think of anything else right now that might work.

If you have already chosen DM/SR, then perhaps you need to look slightly beyond just the powerset to answer your question. Yeah, pretty much a Brute and a Scrapper are going to be doing the same thing in PvP or in a cooperative zone (Architect, Vanguard, etc.). Where you are going to see the difference is in the normal game content.

If you go blueside, your Scrapper is going to be expected to be a "hero." Activities include stopping bank robberies, rescuing kidnap victims, stop drug deals, etc. etc. There is a lot of territory and story content that a lot of people never see because they're too busy farming their next character up to level 50 as quickly as they can. Even someone doing their missions properly need several characters worth of heroes before they've actually seen it all.

There is actually not a lot of story content or territory to cover redside if you choose a Brute. So pretty much you can farm to level 50 or your heart's content without missing a whole lot. Activities include robbing banks, tearing up the city, and just generally being a menace to all things NPC and targetable. There is enough "content" there to get you to 50 if you are in to the story elements. But you are pretty much expected to be a villain instead of reacting to them. If you would like to leave your morality at the door and just tear things up, you might be happier as a Brute.

Flipping a coin might work if you are still undecided.

Well, this is the right forum for travel power posts.

The bad news is that while the power is on, it eats endurance even when it is suppressed. A few people have said that already.

The good news is that none of the travel powers actually have any real recharge time or activation time. So you can turn it off for combat without worrying about waiting to turn it on again after combat. There are some interesting binds you can use to do just that. For example:

/bind w "+forward$$powexecname Sprint"

Usually w is just +forward by default. But what this will do is to activate Sprint and move forward when you press w, and deactivate Sprint and stop moving forward when you release w. Replace Sprint with the travel power of your choice and it works perfectly, usually. The power might reverse its setting if you get de-toggled while moving, but that is easy to fix by manually turning the power off (or on).

Most player characters don't really have all of their tools until level 22. (This is the point that Single Origins in the stores are usable, so the Invention Origin system can blur this line a bit.) There are some builds that can be competitive with the big boys, if sidekicked/lackeyed up. But not everyone is going to be like that.

Custom critters, however, don't scale like that. So rule #1 of lowbie friendly content is Custom critters should only be used for unique bosses. Minions and lieutenants should be filled in from stock critters.

Second, ambushes should be used sparingly and tied strictly easy objectives like release captives, object collections, or destroy objects. Simply put, Someone who might have 45% defense with SO (or level 25+ IOs) who would only suffer 1/10 points of damage at full power would have only 38% defense with dual origins and suffer 1/4th damage, or about 33% protection with training origins which allows 1/3 damage to get through. Without giving a chance to rest and heal up before meeting the next wave, ambushes after or during boss encounters just plain kill lowbies instead of providing a fun "challenge."

But that's really the only hard rules I can come up with. It has been suggested before, but probably the best thing to do is make a defender, controller, corruptor, or dominator for lowbie MA testing and see for yourself what happens with your content.

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You complketely miss the point.

We dont hate the term healer for being the descriptor. We hate it because it generally is used by a certain type of person who promotes a stereotype.

back a couple years ago, if you were not an empath, you NEVER found a team unless you grouped with friends.

Everyone was so caught up in "healers" that they completely ignored you if you didnt fall within that tableau.

After a long while of this, people finally started inviting other types of defenders, and frankly, you try living through multiple years of being ignored (and many still are. ask a trick arrow or cold defender how often they get teams), you start to get a little angry about it.

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I remember that! Those were frustrating times, since I started with a Radiation/Energy defender, I was always the "weaker" healer, even though I had the ability to take out any mission boss or even elite boss alone had I the need to. As this was before the implementation of the notoriety settings, I often had to do just that, too.

Those were frustrating times. It is kind of weird that I'm now experiencing the complete opposite frustration.

Nowadays people make statements like,
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...Add any sets that have any sort of self-heal into the equation too and you'll see that healing as a form of 'survival increase' is very moot, especially once power sets start to mature. I'm not saying healing is bad. I'm saying DEDICATED HEALERS ARE BAD because, especially later on, they don't bring a lot to good teams.


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and this somehow degenerates into a healers are completely useless argument.

I have up to now been actively ignoring the debate about what makes someone a healer, and instead just used a simplified definition "Healers are people who use healing powers."

To be honest, you will never find me playing an Empath, Pain Domination corruptor, Forcefielder, or even a /Thermal controller. One of the big issues that caused me to quit the first time and take a 3 year break wasn't the whole healer vs. everyone else war but a completely different issue. In short, the people who seek teams in the first place seem to have this mentality that the "sweet, sweet XP" justifies everything and that nothing matters except getting to the top levels as soon as possible. Task forces were pure hell, because people absolutely refused to start with less than 8 people, insisted on clearing every minion from every mission regardless of the time wasted, and more often than not team-wiped at the door because three bosses and their entourage were waiting just inside in response to having 8 people in the party. But that might be a rant better left for another thread and another time.

That certainly doesn't mean I want to become a hermit and solo everything from 1-50 and beyond.

I would much sooner leave the debate on who exactly deserves to be called a "healer," or whether "healer" is actually spelled with four letters or not to the other thread on the topic. Both extremes of thinking are in fact really unhealthy for any potential team that might pick up the subscriber.

[ QUOTE ]
SStingray:

Let's look at the "natural" regen of that Tank- not even Regeneration Aura. I am working these numbers out in public, so I may not prove what I expect.

I can get to almost 250% Regen with nothing but 5 slots in Health and, umm, a couple hundred million inf. (Numina's Heal and unique, Regenerative Flesh unique, and two generic Heals.)...

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Good catch. The 240 seconds to go from full from 1 HP is 4 minutes, not 2. But otherwise it checks out.

Dull Pain would heal 1492 HP, once every 360 seconds, so it can be worth about 4.1 HP/s in healing, technically. Health pool would add a +125% regeneration from its own effect and IO enhancements, with the two procs adding 20% and 25% regeneration on top of that for a flat 250%. (Mids' reports 294%, but I don't know how it's computing that number.) Dull pain will increase the total by 746 when slotted for healing, which would get the total up to about 2600 or so.

Natural healing boosted by health and procs would be about 27 HP/s, with Dull Pain counting for an additional 4.1 HP/s on its own. So in this case, our Invulnerability tanker self heals close to what a real healer would do. Score another point for the healer-haters. Now if we can only do something about those crappy energy and element resistances when Unstoppable isn't running we would be in business.

Actually, I really can agree with you in that there isn't one "best" way to deal with the whole mitigation issue, even though some people swear left and right that they've read the numbers and found healers useless, period. But I think you got me this time. If you can get a tanker with Health of Aid Self with a +HP build, or even a self-healing tanker like Fire or Dark, an actual healer does become useless, and a two person team of tank + forcefield can cover the whole team as long as the tank keeps control.

I can't help but to wonder what those tankers are doing to survive before level 50 and the purple IO set.

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Thats the thing though. healing is reactionary, and doesn't scale to content.

A heal doesn't remain as potent when the mobs do to keep parity. A buff does.


[/ QUOTE ]
Trying to verify content scaling was a little difficult, and the only keywords I could find that got anything with useful numbers is "Purple Patch."

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Purple_Patch

Accounting for accuracy scaling up is relatively easy. Accuracy mods happen after defense & to hit calculations, so they multiply right in. But you also get damage mods going both ways. So things get heavy in a hurry. From my example above:

Even level: 3745 HP alpha, 510.4 DPS
Level +1: 4573 HP alpha, 623.2 DPS & your attacks do 90% damage, with your base to-hit at 65%
Level +2: 5482 HP alpha, 747.2 DPS, & your attacks do 80% damage, with your base to-hit at 56%
Level +3: 6475 alpha, 882.5 DPS & your attacks do 65% damage with your base to-hit at 48%
Level +4: 7550 alpha, 1029.0 DPS & your attacks do 48% damage with your base to-hit at 39%.

We have already established that this level of difficulty is too great for any healer, or any number of healers, to be sufficient without some other mitigation present. But with the Defense + healing model that I have been using, the healer may have to use 2 Heal others instead of one, as long as you have 45% defense from whatever methods you choose. 10 seconds to recover instead of 4? With just defense, the tanker takes a lot longer to naturally heal the damage without an investment in resistance or self regeneration. If they take 755 from what gets past defense, it heals in about 106 seconds, or just over a minute and a half if they don't resort to the Rest power. Even if you cut that in half by having better regeneration and some resistance, Mr. Brute or even Mr. Tank is even more motivated to call for a healer.

Going the opposite direction, we can cut down the number of expected enemies in the group to just three minions and a lieutenant at worst if we limit our group to just two people at notoriety 1. Burst damage gets reduced to 991 on average, while DPS gets to be about 160.2 HP/s. This kind of team isn't likely to defeat everyone in a big alpha strike. But 90% force-field mitigation reduces the alpha to 99.1, which would take 25 seconds to heal properly, but allow only 16.2 HP/s through for the rest of that battle adding about 4 seconds of recovery for each second the battle drags out (on average). An empath on the other hand would recover 112 HP/s, which is much less than fully required to deal with the threat. But should the duo survive, they'll be fully recovered in no more than 12 seconds.

So the best way to avoid down-time in a duo is not a pure forcefielder or a pure healer, but a half & half person who can handle both. Should the forcefield defender invest in Aid Other, that will cover 100% of the mitigation for just two, and the blaster up front will be perfectly happy. Otherwise call the Radiation, Dark, or Storm user. (Or perhaps the dark + shield scrapper?)

But all is not lost if a blaster get stuck with the Empath in a duo. Absorb Pain adds about 39.7 HP/s healing, if the empath uses it, and you still have the more advanced skills. Fortitude does add a 15% defense to an ally (with a 30% damage boost and a good chunk of +to-hit as well). So your Empath using his full set gives you 142 HP/s healing and about 30% defense mitigation tacked on to take DPS down to 112.4. So survive the alpha and the full Empath will be giving you HP back as you fight.