Wavicle

well, frankly you should have taken Rock Armor AND Stone Skin

Pre 32, that combo will make you pretty uber as long as you're not fighting things that lack a s/l component (spectral daemons, Fir Bolg, etc)

Earths Embrace helps a lot too

personally I did rather well pre 32 with Rock Armor, Stone Skin, Earths Embrace and no Crystal or Brimstone armor


now, not trying to rain on your parade, of course once you are 32 and have granite, you are ridiculously well defensed

unkillable by almost anything short of Lusca or Hamidon. and even Lusca takes a while to bring you down.

both have their place

kinetics can miss with many of their powers, they draw aggro to themselves pretty easily

even really smart teams can get ambushed by multiple spawns


as I like to say: Empathy is Insurance, Kinetics is Potential

Rain of Fire is useful for getting baddies away from you.
Same is true of Burn.
Taser and Stun are both handy, Taser especially in combo with a power like Beanbag, Stun pre-lvl 38 and post lvl-38 against a Boss that resists Total Focus.

AoE sleeps (at least the Mind one...) are great for limiting Alpha Strikes, and for setting up Containment, or for getting close in for PBAoE effects.

Confront can be useful as a pull, and since it is single target, can be used to get a baddy off a squishy, and will not aggro more than the one foe it is used on.

Self Rezzes can be very handy...saves Def and Troller rezzes for other folks, lets you get back into the action quickly.

Fire Breath has a HUGE DoT...3 BIG ticks.

so...on the whole, I disagree with a lot of your assessments...
and many of the others you mention are situationally useful, which is fine, since most of those sets have what they need for every spawn in just a few powers...the rest of the set is for the situations where the basics aren't sufficient.

sure, but compare them to say...Fulcrum Shift and Speed Boost...or Oil Slick and Disruption Arrow...

You pretty much defeated your own point there. Virtually every defender set OTHER than Empathy has tools for A) Crowd control and B)Speeding up the defeat of mobs. In fact Empathy is the LEAST effective set for those two things. So your own examples of what works better than healing is something defenders BESIDES Empaths have in spades.

Empathy is a set that will work well pretty much regardless of the rest of the team's makeup. However, it doesn't actually do that much in terms of speeding up the rate of defeating of mobs. Instead it offers a safety net of Endurance, Defense, Tohit Buffs, Mez Protection, Regeneration and Heals.

Trick Arrow, Kinetics, Storm Summoning, these sets actually help make battles faster. They boost team damage and limit incoming damage.

Trick Arrow, Kinetics, some of the other sets, really benefit from a slightly more balanced team, with a (dare I say it) Tanker who knows to go in first and grab aggro.

My Stone Tanker and my friends Trick Arrow Defender are the core of a great team for fighting Carnies, or just about anything else for that matter.


And although you would never know it (cause no one ever seems to play it) Sonic Resonance is the best set in the game for Mez Protection buffs, as it is the only set that gets both an aoe mez resist toggle AND a single target buff.

touche

9 out of 10 times in my opinion, someone who says "we need an x" is right that we need something, but wrong about what x is

My experience says you are incorrect.

DEBUFFS allow teams to take on things that they would never attempt otherwise.

Not Heals, not Buffs, but Debuffs.

Good guide (is it a guide? I'm not entirely sure...)

I would add that an important part of being a good player in CoX is understanding how most (all?) of the different powersets work (in at least a basic way) in order to be able to adjust your own tactics to work well with whoever you may be teaming with.

Blasters who team with Kineticists, I'm looking at you...
Kineticists who team with Blasters, I'm also looking at you...

Anyone who teams with Tankers, yep you too...

I could go on, but it would pretty much devolve into a set by set list of every toon in the game, lol

A bug.


OBVIOUSLY.

Gonna be fixed soon.

can you tell me about the effect, or lack thereof, of slotting accuracy enhancements into a taunt aura, in PvE?

Mudpots seems to be autohit in PvE, is only the Taunt autohit and the Damage requires tohit? or are both autohit?

What is the black "Elude" type logo in nearly all the villains buff bars?

That's what a stalker DOES.

Yes. Also no XP or Prestige in PvP zones.

Given that the Known Issues includes that the RV AVs are going to be debtless deathdealers soon....

Why not make all PvP zones completely debt free for all NPC caused deaths?

dude, just take fly! hover is your knockback protection, burn is your immobilize protection, what is the problem?

I would hope for 5th tier pool powers as well, including (but not limited to) Teleport TO Friend

HAHAHAHAHAH

It's funny because it's true...

ah, ok, ty for the info. I have never takent he fighting pool. Probably never will either...

Could someone tell me what power that is, 4th slot, tray 2?

I recognize all the inv and ss stuff, but what's that other toggle?

dude, the AoE def in Hide is way better than the AoE def in Lucky.

In all seriousness:

Are the status effect attacks of Martial Arts and Spines not enough to pull you through with lower defense?

Not only is it perma with two SOs, with Quickness and 3 SOs it overlaps for about 30 seconds. Really, after lvl 22 or 24, barring an (ill advised pre-elude) attempt at scranking there is no reason an SR scrapper should EVER be mezzed or knocked back in PvE.

Also, there are still MANY perma powers. Self Buffs include Practiced Brawler, Siphon Speed and Boost Range. Ally Buffs include (ALMOST perma with Hasten) Accelerate Metabolism, Inertial Reduction, Fortitude, I'm sure I am missing a variety of powers here. Attack and debuff powers include Caltrops, Flash Arrow, Tar Patch, again more than I know of or care to name.

I really dont understand this. My friend's katana/sr is lvl 50, he has never had any of the passive powers. On live he is SLIGHTLY disadvantaged against higher level mobs, particularly those with high acc like rikti drones and rularuu eyeballs. On Test, tried twice in the last week, ALSO with NO passives, he is a GOD. I really don't understand the claims that SR must have the passives AND the toggles to be any good.