Wilfred

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In fact, no AT can do that on his own vs. a proper stalker in the zones.

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Regen Scrappers can

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Regen scrappers can stack 4 holds??

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Can survive the AS, I guess. Although I don't hold with that, since even my Brute can two-shot regens (with appropriate buffage) I'd be surprised if stalkers couldn't manage it.

It's all swings and roundabouts, really, at lower levels (BB, SC) stalkers are bound to be more powerful as fewer +per powers are bouncing about. In WB and RV, suddenly everyone and his wife has a +per power, and stalkers start to need strategy to wins. We were fooning about in RV recently, and a stalker came bouncing past with a disruptor that shot me... being Squishy, I don't like that sort of thing so the stalker got taken down rapidly. We had lots of focused accuracy, an Ice tank, Tactics and CM and really the stalker couldn't get close enough to AS. Yet, he managed to get a couple of kills anyway by separating the team.

Much as Stalkers need to adapt in WB and RV, everyone else needs to adapt in BB and SC. With the right preparation and attention there's little a stalker can do to you (unless you're solo and AFK, of course)

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Energy Melee - Yes... It's amazing.
Super Strength - No... bog standard, everyone has it, pants.


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My take on it... Energy Melee - Slightly camp glowy effects, attacks look comically underpowered, the two attacks worth taking don't arrive til levels 35 & 38, sound effects remind me of Tinkerbell
SuperStrength - Meaty hits throughout, RAGE, chunky sound effects, RAGE, Knockout Blow has the finest animation of any melee attack in the game, says I, RAGE, level 38 power is not only powerful but AoE and with slight soft control. Incidentally, SuperStrength also has Rage.

It may be cliché, but SS is just that damn good.

All I know is, herding feels dead artificial and was a lot less efficient in my 30-50 teams, according to herostats every time we tried it.

The worst bit about herding, I find, is that it buggers up the prospect of perma fulcrum shift.

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Wilf has enough awakens to last the night.

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Sometimes... sometimes. Spad's an anomaly, he's been tanking so long he could do it (and do it well) with his eyes closed.

I've two tanks, who play very differently.

My Inv/Fire is really very tough indeed. I can comfortably sustain incoming damage from 3 mobs of an 8-spawned level 53 map (unless it's malta, natch). The problem is, there's no way in hell that I could hold all of their aggro. With Taunt and Invinci slotted up for taunt (and taunt for recharge too), plus my big happy AoE's, I'd be lucky if I got 2/3's of their aggro - the other 1/3rd of the mob is more than enough to wipe out an unwary blaster.

So generally, I tank as the team moves. I'm almost always in front (cos I'm the one who runs on first, when the last mob is down to 2 or 3 foes left - I'm not needed there) so I'm the one that hoofs it into the next mob first and tries to get their attention before the rest of the team arrives.

I tried herding, for about 5 levels in the early forties - I was tough enough to do it, and quite good at judging my aggro cap, but at the end of the day it was quite simply slower than normal tanking. To get the attention of a couple of mobs, wait around a corner for two minutes while they all arrive, keep the team informed of what's going on - it all interrupted the flow and xp gain slowed down for everyone even when it was working well. And when it wasn't working well - blasters stealing aggro before it's consolidated, controllers immob'ing half the mob while it's scattered running towards the corner, scrappers getting bored and dying in unrelated mobs, defenders going afk for a moment while we all die horribly, other tankers with alternate ideas on how to herd trying to taunt them off of me - it's a nightmare, it really is.

So herding got binned long ago, for me.

In general, you don't need to hold all of the aggro - as long as the majority's off the team and anything alarmingly dangerous is focused on you, as long as the team are surviving well you're doing your job well enough. you don't NEED to have all of the aggro absolutely locked down at all times - that slows things down and lowers XP gain across the board.

My other tanker is Fire/SS, and he has neither aura nor taunt, and doesn't even try for aggro. He hits stuff a lot, and that's all. It might not be old-school tanking, but hey. It kicks seven shades of behind.

The 1/6th number was simply for illustration - the idea being that even if the damage to a single minion is small, the cumulative damage has the potential to be huge.

I mentioned tankers and controllers for a reason - they're the ones that stop you from getting aggro, making it safe to help out the team. And you can rest assured that in that situation, doing damage across the whole mob will make a hell of a lot more difference than hitting one minion with subdue.

Scream does huge -recharge, to a large number of foes. Where there's a good tank or controller, there's no reason not to. You're not just attacking your own target, you're helping out with everyone else's. Say it takes off the equivalent of 1/6th of a minion's life - spread that across six minions and you've effectively killed a minion, as the team will spend that much less time beating up the rest.

Sometimes the time is just ripe to fire off all AoE's.

If you can justify taking any pure-damage single target power, you can justify scream. You can't see its controlling effect, like you could with WD or TKB, but it's definitely there.

Fastest route to 50 is to roll an FF/Psi defender and solo all the way. Remember to take Jump Kick and Provoke.

Honest, guv.

Also, if you want fast, go Fire/Kin controller. Blinding on a team and solo. Scrappers are limited in that they can mostly only pound on one or two mobs at a time, except spines - and to get the most out of spines solo you'd probably need to herd which can be dangerous and slows you down a lot. Fire/Kins can just go all day long with no breaks in the go to mob>immob mob>watch mob perish in flames>go to mob>immob mob...etc chain.

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I use Psychic Wail (which does AMAZING damage - I believe that it's second only to rad's Atomic Blast - according to CoH/CoV builder, it's even more powerful than a blaster's Nova or Inferno)

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Here we see the problem inherent with BI - It's less powerful than the blaster nukes stated, because BI doesn't account for the ranged damage modifier applied to defenders (x0.65). So, multiply the number which the builder gives you for Wail by 0.65 for a clearer picture when comparing with the Blaster nova attacks (which have a modifier of 1, so can stay as they are).

Wail's still ace, but can't compare to a blaster final.

I think I'd be tempted to drop one or two of those accuracies and slot recharge.

Each to their own, I guess. I just don't see how it could be more useful than Hasten, ever.

Defender elec's crowning glory is Short Circuit - Hurricane negates it. Storm/Elec is not a good choice unless you're hung up on the Storm-off-the-X-Men thing. . Storm/Energy is great, Energy is good honest up-front damage with knockback aplenty to augment what you already have. Storm/Psi gives a more controlery feel - the lack of a BuildUp-type power sometimes feels like it lacks oomph, however. Rad is very fast-firing and with fantastic sound and visuals - feels a bit lacklustre damage-wise, though. Archery is good damage, but also fairly widely resisted. Blazing Arrow is incredible damage, for a defender. Main drawback is the constant put-away-bow-cast-storm-power-draw-bow-again thing. Dark blast is controllery, and definitely feels lacking in damage. It doesn't have the up-front insta-damage that makes you feel like something's actually happening. Tentacles and dark Pit works as a sort of pseudo-AoE hold when both are slotted, which works well once you have the mobs all nicely cornered. Sonics is good single target damage with a powerful res debuff - the noise it makes gets old very quickly soloing, though. Powerful, if you can handle playing with the sound off.

Summary - I'd go with energy, hands down. Second place goes to Dark, then Psi, then Dark, Rad, Archery, Sonic.

Without knowing any more about the planned team: Radiation.

It speeds things up on a good team (though not as well as kinetics) and makes things safe on a... um... less good team(Though not as well as Dark). Radiation, Sonic, Storm and Dark are probably the most diverse sets - If it's your first defender, I'd certainly go with Rad or Dark.

Tis a shame you're not running hasten - helps a lot with /Psi's looong recharge.

Subdue>TK Blast>Will Dom>Domination makes a nice chain with hasten up, dunno how you'd fare without Hasten though. Could slot a recharge on WD and TK to help, I guess.

Mental Blast should get better in I8 if I've heard right - may be worth using that as part of a chain if they can reduce the 2-3 seconds of rooting.

What's this maybe business about Regen aura - Turn your team near-unkillable for about a third of the time? Yes please. It's very very powerful.

Out of interest, do you use the Teleport pool for a main travel power? I can't think of any possible use for recall friend after level 14 - Everyone's got a travel power!

I've not tried this - can you hit Aid Self inside the jelly? It might be auto-interrupt.

Don't forget unyielding, though!

All I can say is; It's down to the tank to decide how the tank wishes to play. It is his (or her) toon. That's the sum of it, as far as I'm concerned.

I think he problem is that he's coming from a scrapper viewpoint. Indeed, a level 10 defender will not solo as fast as a level 50 scrapper.

If you found a kin slow, storm will certainly be no faster. It's all about the tactics. I'd rely on teams for your main XP gain, save the soloing for the fun. I like Storm/Energy, myself, since the colour fits well and the uberknockback makes for controller-style play.

If you want unusual, go for Sonic/Anything.

Don't make me choose! They're all great...

My Empath is just absolutely first rate team support - noone forgets their first 50, and playing my empath is akin to riding a bike... you never forget. Soon as I have that tray of green and pink powers I just swing straight into the heal-buff-blast rhythm again. There's almost nothing that an empath can't patch up.

Second up, my Dark/Radss and my Rad/Elec. Both ace debuff potential, and both fantastic levellers, as I can nip into a hazard zone, drop anchor and just fire off AoE after AoE after heal until each gert mob drops. Excellent in teams, too.

My Kin/Psi... too much work, I'm really lazy. Yet undeniably powerful and turns great teams into fantastically well-oiled killing machines.

Storm/Energy - soooo hectic, so swirly and blue and white. A walking whirlwind of knockback and fun.

Yet to get FF, Sonics or TA anywhere... but definitely looking forward to my son/son getting a decent level. Though the noise does my nut in.

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I'm sorry, I'm a noob, I was wondering what the numbers by the enhancements mean.

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That's the levels the slots are added mate.

Weave is really, really good. As inv, you should really try to max out your s/l damage res - the less damage you take from that (it's pretty easy to cap) the more you can concurrently take of the non-s/l that you're weaker against. Same with Def.

When it's going good, in my opinion Warburg is the most fun zone.

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...Super Speed using Scrapper runs alongside me, looks at me, I engage bodyguard and wait..... Scrapper runs in and starts to slice at me, robots launch themselves at him and quickly despatch him (due to buffs helping too, oh and a massive heavy).

This happens again with another failed attack after he resparned

It happens again!

Next time, he resumes his attack, for some reason he's harder to hit (I think he took insps... suddenly WAY better!), I die... but still

Was rather funny how persistent he was even when I was just sorta minding my own buisness

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If this was a while ago and on Union, and against a BS/Regen, it may well have been me. I remember distinctly doing something very similar to that.

Personally, I'd drop the two passives and conserve power in favour of getting tough and weave in there. I'd also drop an attack (not sure which one, don't know the axe set well) for buildup early on. Doing 100% more damage on every third attack chain is probably better than having one extra attack.

Drop the tohit buffs and the end reduction from invincibility and get three taunts in there, and get taunt slotted up as much as possible with recharges and taunts.

Drop some end reduction from armour across the board, it's overkill; one end reduction per armour and one per attack (two if it's a big attack and you have space) will be enough with stamina.

People do die. But then again, not as often if you plomp a slotted Fort on them.

You'll probably want hasten and superspeed, rather than teleport or leaping. Leaping is good for the slight hold protection, but you should be outside of the fighting group so that you can watch everything that's happening, only nipping in to fire off a heal aura every now and again. It will make you a crisper and more reliable empath, mobility is the absolute key and in-mission, leaping does not grant enough of that.

Superspeed grants you excellent mobility in combat, as it's unsuppressed by buffings, and has stealth too (hurrah, you've saved a power pick - although taking stealth as well grants you as-good-as-invis-but-can-still-do-stuff). Very useful for bundling across a large room to heal up a couple of scrappers who decided to attack a different mob. If you're stealthed and out of the action most of the time you will rarely, if ever, need acrobatics - it doesn't protect you from sleep or disorient, which are the main aoe mezzes that will hit you.

Lay off throwing any slots at absorb pain until you have heal other and aura fully slotted (it's superb straight out of the box).

Get Fortitude asap, and at least three-slot it for recharge, preferably six-slot for recharge and defence.

Get clear mind earlier. When you're exemping it makes all the difference. Empaths should at least be able to cure, and be able to buff too. Your heals cure green, your RA cures blue. Your CM is what cures everything else. You need it as soon as it's available. Add to this the new faultline content that's on the way, PvE arachnos missions will soon be a reality and the +perception will be of much use against their smoke grenades.

The entire leadership pool can wait a bit. You've more important things to take early on than very hungry toggles. Vengeance is pure icing. Take it when you've taken every essential power and have a gap in your schedule.

Never ever delay taking Recovery Aura. It's level 18 and always should be. Your level 19 slots should go into it. I could almost understand delaying it if you had stamina, but without it, and expecting to run leaderships, no.

If you're intent on leadership, you may want to look at stamina later in the build. Things can get frantic, especially if you're up against anything doing end drain (clocks, silver clocks, freaks, carnies, malta, arachnos).

I'd also strongly advise at least a second attack, sometimes the best way to protect someone is to finish off the foe bashing them, other times you may want to solo a bit, and other times you'll be on a team with a bubbler and not need to do anything and be bored. Also, towards the mid-late 30's you'll have loads of slots and nowhere to put them, and end up doing something clever like slotting up brawl, sprint, or clear mind if you don't have something that could use some more slots. You'll want Tesla cage when it's available, too.

Here's what I'd be looking at...

01) --> Heal Other==> Rechg(1) Rechg(3) Rechg(3) Heal(5) Heal(9) Heal(11)
01) --> Charged Bolts==> Acc(1)
02) --> Healing Aura==> Rechg(2) Rechg(5) Rechg(7) Heal(7) Heal(9) Heal(11)
04) --> Absorb Pain==> Rechg(4)
06) --> Resurrect==> Rechg(6)
08) --> Clear Mind==> Range(8)
10) --> Hasten==> Rechg(10) Rechg(15) Rechg(15)
12) --> Fortitude==> Rechg(12) Rechg(13) Rechg(13) DefBuf(17) DefBuf(17) DefBuf(25)
14) --> Super Speed==> Run(14)
16) --> Lightning Bolt==> Acc(16)
18) --> Recovery Aura==> EndMod(18) EndMod(19) EndMod(19) Rechg(21) Rechg(21) Rechg(23)
20) --> Assault==> EndRdx(20)
22) --> Tactics==> TH_Buf(22) TH_Buf(23) TH_Buf(25)
24) --> Hurdle==> Jump(24)
26) --> Regeneration Aura==> Rechg(26)

Aye, thug pets tend to get a bbit end-heavy with their top upgrade. Being thugs/FF, I like to have them slotted for 3 x def buff, 2 x acc and 1 x damage - I'm a very lazy player and will happily take the 66% loss in damage in preference of not having to do anything, ever. Dark's probably different though, actually requires Work.

If anyone wants proof we can gather together some 50 Emps at some point and show off?