Best Teammate

What is the best team oriented defender type? I want to be the best and most useful group member i can be and don't care about damage. I don't know a whole heck of alot about defender primary/secondaries but was thinking empath/dark or kinetic/dark they both seem to be very team oriented. If anyone can make some suggestions please do so and if you can post a build that would be even better

Well, if you want to easily and often find a team, then Empath is the way to go (and they're great starting out) Force Fields are also good, but not as favored as Emapth as they don't mitigate much damage early on.

Kinetics is probably the BEST team set. It does really, really amazing things. I'd pick Dark for a secondary. Team buffs from the primary and enemy debuffing from the Secondary is just a sexy combo all around. However, with the "tohit" nature of kinetics, accuracy can be desired early on.

H_J

I have a few defenders. Regardless of what the Instruction manual says, Defenders, good defenders, are the hardest class to play because you have to be on the ball every second.

If you have never played one before I highly recomend a Emp/Rad .

Empath so you learn how to single heal that blaster who's 100 feet away and getting alpha agro, and Rad for the AoE's and better accuracy. Dont expect to know what's going on in the fight, you will be instead watching the health bar for yellow and the chat log for "ZZZ". The AoE's are a great way to give you something to do while you wait to buff a team member, hitting the nearest enemy button, launching a neutron bomb, then going back to buffing people.

All Defenders are good in their own way, and all require a lot of practice to learn to survive with. There are two thing though, only use keyboard shortcuts to use your powers. Do NOT click. The last thing you want to do is try to heal someone and instead have the game lag heal the last person you had selected who is currently very healthy. The second thing? Go for recharge not heal power. You will be kicking yourself over and over if people are in dire straights and you are pounding on the heal button, waiting for it to come back up again.

Good luck.

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I want to be the best and most useful group member i can be and don't care about damage.

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Sounds to me like you might want a Controller . Defenders have Blasts for a reason.

The different Defender sets do very different things, and play in very different ways. One thing none of them are is "Healers" in the sense that other games have. Even Empathy, the closest to a "Healer", gets very powerful buffs in the second half of the game. Any Defender that advertises "Can rez" is planning to lose.

* Kinetics make the team into an offensive juggernaut. More damage, more endurance, more speed, more power. Especially good with: melee.
* Empaths have heals, anti-mezzing, and some of the most powerful buffs in the game. (Regen Aura = 0 to full health in, what, 24 seconds?!?)
* Force Fields: One of the most limited sets. You JUST keep people from getting hit. You can't do anything to save them in the middle of the fight either. . . but you generally won't need to. I play Force Fields because it's "fire and forget."
* Dark: Does nearly everything. Offense, defense, control, healing, etc. etc. Mostly works by weakening enemies.
* Rad: Also does nearly everything, but differently. Weakens enemies and strengthens friends more or less evenly.
* Sonic: Damage resistance plus utility powers.
* Storm: Very powerful, but probably not for beginners.
* Trick Arrow: I'm not very experienced with this set.

If you don't care about damage at *all*? Controller. Anything but Fire.

If you don't have someone available to "pimp out" your character with full enhancements, you might want to try Empathy instead of Kinetics. While Kinetics is in some ways more powerful than Empathy, Kinetics powers have to *hit*, which means that you're not only having to slot for effect, and slot for recharge, but you've got to put some accuracy in there as well, and if you miss or pick the wrong target, nothing happens and everyone dies. This requires you to keep your enhancements up to speed, and reduces your effectiveness against +cons.

Empathy does what it does, all the time, reliably. The only thing you have to worry about is running out of endurance. Empathy can be hard to play (though you learn a lot about multitasking) but it's easy to build the character. Your build is basically: Are there empathy powers available to take that you haven't taken? Take them. Have any slots you don't need for attacks? Slot some of your empathy powers. Go forth, level up, repeat the process.

Must agree re the Controller vs Def if you don't care about damage. I have a lvl 21 Grav/Force Cont and he plays well on a small or full team. Keep those villains up in the air!
Also, kin/dark Defender - awesome char. in a group. But you really do have to be on the ball all the time.
If you want a really insane challenge, try a TA/Archer Def on a well led team. I have a lvl 8 TA/A def and although the pwrs are a little questionable re loadtime and end useage, I've learned an immense amount about planning strategy, patience and when to run! I too am not too concerned about debt, more play technique.
Either one you choose, if you don't heal, remember to add that little nugget into your Team info. You'll still get asked (ad nauseum) if you heal, but really good Leaders will always read your info first.

I have to agree that empathy and kinetics are the best "team" oriented power sets. For your secondary, however, I recommend electric. The end drain isn't that great but the set has a great hold in Tesla Cage.

If you go Controller, I suggest stone, ice or mind power sets.

Another thing to consider is power pools. TP is a great team power set as is Leadership. Recall friend I recommend getting right away, especially if you're an empath. Leadership can be taken later on but gives a decent bonus to your team’s abilities to dish out damage.

My main was the first (and still my favorite) hero from this game, and I started it with the exact same mindset that you did. I am currently level 33, and I still have not picked up one single attack power (getting one at 35). He has all of the Empathy primaries, and the pool powers complement my "All-team" build very nicely.

Speed: Hasten makes everything much easier, especially later in game due to the big recharges of RA, Adrenalin Boost, Fortitude, etc. It also helps for the smaller powers, but is more noticeable for the bigger ones. SS also seems to be a good power to be able to keep up during battle, and has helped me when the team has split.

TP: Recall friend was all I had until I respecced into TP self. (I was sick of just SS for travel, and I had an open slot) Recall friend is useful, even after people have a travel power.

Leadership: Assault and Tactics are good, mostly for teams who are fine already and do not need your healing

Stealth: I respecced into this and out of Fitness because of Vigilance. Vigilance works perfectly for an emp, and you will have trouble running out of end if you actually need it. Grant invis and SS+Stealth can help your team ghost or go through tough zones

Hope this helps