PK's Comprehensive FF Defender Guide Rev. 1

Westley · 05-03-2007 12:05 PM

Philotic Knight's
Comprehensive Guide to Force Field Defenders
Revision 1 - 05/03/2007

Introduction
This guide is meant to replace my previous guide to FF Defenders, both in fact and in spirit. In my previous guide I presented only one general limited playstyle that I felt crystallized the 'essence' of the set. In doing so, I limited the scope of the guide. In this new guide, I intend to provide all of the information that a bubbler needs to play in any way that they wish, although it will still be limited to PvE because I don't PvP at all. We will begin with a powers summary and the specific benefits each power gives along with tricks on how to use them in many circumstances. Then we will go onto your role in a team, and the main strategies you could follow to fill that role.

The purpose of this guide is to concentrate specifically on the primary powers in the Force Field Defender set. I will mention the secondary blasts a little bit but I think there are far better guides to the power pools and epic pools out there. There are many people much smarter than I that can work on providing information about the vast array of other powers players can take. They can even post them here if they want, I'm sure it would be appreciated! With that said, let's move on into the powers!

Powers Summary

Click the power's name to see a screenshot of the power's description from within the game.

Note: The numbers provided are derived from Red Tomax's Guide to City of Heroes ALL MAG numbers are estimated based on my own perception of their effect ingame.

<ul type="square">[*]Personal Force Field
Level Available: 1
Recharge: 15 seconds
Endurance: 0.13/second
Def: 75% (All)
Res: 40% (All but 100% Res to enemy teleport)
[*]Deflection Shield
Level Available: 1
Recharge: 2 seconds
Endurance: 7.8
Defense: 15% (Smashing, Lethal, Melee)
Res: Toxic (40%)
Duration: 240 seconds (4 minutes)
Range: 80 Ft.
[*]Force Bolt
Level Available: 2
Recharge: 4 seconds
Endurance: 5.2
Accuracy: 1.4
Knockback: MAG1
Range: 80 Ft.
[*]Insulation Shield
Level Available: 6
Recharge: 2 seconds
Endurance: 7.8
Defense: 15% (Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative, Ranged, AoE)
Resistance: Endurance Drain (86.5%)
Duration: 240 seconds (4 minutes)
Range: 80 Ft.

[*]Detention Field
Level Available: 8
Recharge: 60 seconds
Endurance: 10.4
Accuracy: 1.4
Duration: 30 seconds
Immobilize: MAG4
Range: 80 Ft
[*]Dispersion Bubble
Level Available: 12
Recharge: 15 seconds
Endurance: 0.26/second
Defense: 10% (All)
Status Effect Resistance: MAG 1 (Hold, Immobilize, Stun/Disorient)
Range: 25ft Radius around the user
Important note: Every major set in the game was designed with one major weakness, that was a part of NCSoft's design philosophy. Force Field's major weakness is Sleep. None of your powers provide you with ANY resistence to Sleep effects. However, remember that Sleep only affects you if it actually hits you, so your only defense against sleep aside from pool powers is, well, more Defense!

[*]Repulsion Field
Level Available: 18
Recharge: 20 seconds
Endurance: 0.39/second + 1 per enemy hit (whether resisted by the enemy or not)
Knockback: MAG1 (each hit)
Range: Melee (7 Ft.)
[*]Repulsion Bomb
Level Available: 26
Recharge: 30 seconds
Endurance: 10.4
Accuracy: 1.2
Knockback: MAG2
Chance to Stun/Disorient: 40%
It should also be noted that this power's description is incorrect, it is now an ENEMY-targettable power, not an ally targettable one. Not sure when they're going to fix the text in-game.
[*]Force Bubble
Level Available: 32
Recharge: 15 seconds
Endurance: 0.17/second
Repel: MAG4
Knockback: MAG4
Range: 50 Ft. Radius around the user
[/list]
Your Role
Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of an FF defender is NOT to be only a buffbot for other heroes. Look at the powers in the set. Only 3 of the powers are defense providing powers. That leaves 6 powers (!!!) that do NOT buff your allies, but do other things instead. Let's give a quick rundown of what all these powers do, and maybe we can see why the majority of Force Field defenders are sadly gimping themselves by not making good use of half of their powers.

We have 3 defense raising powers - Deflection and Insulation Fields, and Dispersion Bubble
We have 4 enemy positioning powers - Force Bolt, Repulsion Field, Repulsion Bomb, Force Bubble
We have 2 'untouchable' powers - Personal Force Field (keep away from ME!), Detention Field (keep everyone away from HIM!)

Most people see this set as a defense buff set and nothing more. However, looking at what these powers do, they do something far more valuable. The intended role of a Force Field defender is to defend his allies on the battlefield, using every trick that they have in their toolbox. We have defense to make all of our allies and ourself less squishy, we have knockback powers and a repel power to control the position of enemies, and we have 'untouchable' powers to protect either ourselves or our allies from danger. This is our role, to Protect and Serve our teammates. Other defenders may be able to heal, or debuff, or buff in other ways, but no other type of defender is designed to be as much of a team player as the Force Field Defender. You can solo if you wish, but your home is in a team, and you can see that this is true because a large portion of our powers cannot be used on ourselves!

Strategies

Your strategy as a Force Field Defender will depend alot on your team makeup and the circumstances of the battlefield. ALL Defense is situational, so with most Defender Powersets, you are more than likely not going to be using all of your powers all of the time. The smart Defender knows where and when to use his/her powers for the greatest team efficiency. These are the primary strategies that you could follow, depending on the team makeup:

Tanker or AoE Heavy Teams: Since alot of your powers are knockback or repel based, you will want to avoid using them in this team to scatter mobs. However, that doesn't mean that they are useless. Instead of scattering the mobs, you should use your knockback powers to actually knock enemies TOGETHER, into one big mass. That way the toughies can stand in the middle of them and smash them to pieces, and AoEs do the greatest good. Hop around the battlefield like a crazy whack-a-mole and keep circling the central mob, knocking enemies into it or BACK into it, whatever the case may be.

Scrapper or Ranged (non AoE) Heavy Teams: Here you can use your knockback powers to their greatest effect, by keeping all of your enemies as far from your allies as is possible. The Blaster will love you both for the extra defense that you can provide them, but also for keeping the enemies far away and on their backs. The key to working with scrappers is to always be wary of the enemy that your scrapper is attacking, and to knock all of the OTHER enemies away from him, to keep his health bar up and his annoyance meter down. Knocking your scrapper buddy's target away from him is a NO-NO!

Mixed Teams: Pay attention to the first few mobs that your team runs up against and see how your allies perform. If you notice a certain ally always taking too much of the aggro, concentrate your knockback abilities on that person and help keep them alive longer. If your team is doing well, you can concentrate on your blasting more than your knockback, but keep those shields on, and make sure that you are wary of the battlefield! In a mixed team things can go wrong very quickly, so be prepared to turn into a knockback machine if this happens. The few seconds you can keep your enemies busy and off of their feet could mean the difference between life and death for your team.

Blaster With Benefits: Since Defender's secondary powers are blasts, you could conceivably build a character that only used the defense providing powers, and then concentrate on your blasts and optimize them for damage. However, since Defenders do only 2/3rds of the damage of a blaster, I'd recommend against this and instead defend those teammates that can do far more damage than you can.

No matter what you do, you are more than likely going to be using alot of knockback, so I strongly suggest you also read Let Fly! - A Guide to Knockback Control by Midnight_Flux. It is an excellent guide and a must read for beginners on knockback.

Tactics

Deflection and Insulation Shields - Recommended Slotting: 3 Defense Buff (1 Endurance Reduction Optional)

The simple strategy with these is this: always keep them on all of your allies. No matter what. Period. They last 4 minutes, so either get yourself a timer, stopwatch or use a program like HeroStats to make sure that your allies' bubbles never expire.

I will provide you however with a tool that I consider to be very valuable, a bind! Using this bind is simply one of the FASTEST ways to buff up your team with both shields. Create a directory to place the bind files in, I place mine in a directory called c:\CoH. Then create the two text files shown below:

File name: shield1.txt

g "powexec_name deflection shield$$bind_load_file c:\coh\shield2.txt"

File name: shield2.txt

g "powexec_name insulation shield$$bind_load_file c:\coh\shield1.txt"

Now go into the game and type the following line to initialize the bind: /bind_load_file c:\coh\shield1.txt

What these files will do is make the letter G on your keyboard an insta-shielder, so that every time you press it, it will place a shield on your selected ally. Then the next time you press it, it will place the OTHER shield on the ally. The order doesn't matter, since it loops back anyways. So all you have to do to buff your team really quick is to select a teammate on the list, hit G two times in a row, wait to hear both shields apply, then click on the next teammate. You can also click the blue arrow on the right hand side of the team window to see all your teammates buffs and make sure that both shields took effect. If you wish to, you can of course edit this bind to point to a different letter, and you can put the files in any directory that you wish, as long as you change the directory listed in the bind files to where you put them.

If you are having trouble with this, or if you just want to learn more about binds in general, try out The Incomplete and Unofficial Guide To /bind by Curveball.

Dispersion Bubble - Recommended Slotting: 3 Defense Buff (1 Endurance Reduction Optional)

This power should also be on at all times, unless for some reason you are running low on endurance and your teammates are doing okay in the health department. Also, try to make sure as many allies as possible are within the power's 50 Ft range. If you can't get everyone, at least try to make sure that the weakest allies are within range (i.e. Blasters, Controllers, and other Defenders). If you are facing alot of enemies with Status Attacks (like Sleep, Hold or Stun) then you might want to make sure that this is over your tank, who will be holding most of the aggro, or whoever is 'acting' as the tank for the team.

Now onto some powers that require a bit more thought.

Personal Force Field - Recommended Slotting: 3 Recharge (Up to 3 Defense Optional, it already comes with 75% Defense Bonus!)

The very first power in the Force Field set, and what I consider to be the signature power. What do force fields do? Provide defense. And what does PFF do? Provide ultimate defense. It makes you NEARLY invulnerable to almost all types of attacks (about 75%), and the attacks that do get through have their damage reduced by about 40%. Higher level enemies may still be a danger, especially if they are more than 4 levels above you. This is a great 'emergency' power, as well as a great power to use while traveling to ensure your safety. However, I do not think that these are the only uses for this power.

PFF has a pretty decent recharge speed, so while it doesn't come back fast, it does come back quick enough if you want to use it to 'sit out' a bit of a battle. A good strategy here would be to have your Dispersion Bubble up along with the PFF, after you've buffed your teammates with Deflection/Insulation shields. Then, when you enter the battle, the tougher members of the team can handle and absorb the primary attack, while you stand ready to assist. If an ally or your entire team looks like they are in trouble, then you can instantly drop the PFF and give the team/ally the bonus that they provide. A benefit of this tactic is that since you have NOT been attacking any other mobs, all of your attacks are READY and can be fired off in a chain to hopefully destroy any dangers that an ally might be facing.

PFF has another great use that I found quite interesting, note that the power makes you invincible but not INVISIBLE. What does this mean to you? It means that while the enemy cannot hurt you, they CAN see you. This is fun for alot of laughs once in awhile, as you sit in the middle of a frustrated mob trying to defeat you. However, for combat, this quirk can be a unique asset. What it means is that you can be a very short-term Tanker! You can do this one of two ways. You can either turn on PFF first and run or teleport into the middle of a mob, angering them to no end; or you can use an attack power on the boss of the mob (preferably an AoE) and then instantly turn on your PFF to absorb the retaliating attack. This works especially well if you stand far back, activate your attack power when you are OUT of range, then run into range. The attack will finally activate and you can have your mouse over the PFF to turn it on instantly (assuming you move with the keyboard). Now you can't be a TRUE tank with this trick, since you can't hold aggro, but you can hold SOME of the aggro while dispersing the rest of it to the rest of your team evenly. And dispersed aggro on teammates is always better than concentrated aggro on one teammate (except tanks), because it can be handled easier. Do not attempt this trick if any of your buddies like to use alot of AoE attacks, because then THEY will most likely draw the concentrated aggro right away.

Another facet of this power is that it prevents any of your powers from effecting the outside world. This means that you can use Force Bubble or Repulsion Field to grab the attention of all the enemies, then rather than having to turn these powers off, you can just turn on your PFF and the powers don't work on them anymore. After the enemies try to hit you a few times and they find out they can't, you will lose aggro and can probably turn PFF off again, which will reactivate these powers. Be careful with this though, as Force Bubble in particular is an aggro magnet if PFF won't come back right away.

Force Bolt - Recommended Slotting: 1 Accuracy, 3 Recharge (1 Endurance Reduction Optional)

This is probably one of the most useful 'utility' powers in the game. It does a TINY amount of damage, but it's not worth slotting for it. Use this for pinpoint knockback to pick enemies off of an ally that's taken on more than he can chew, or to supplement what Repulsion Bomb didn't knock away. You can make this power into a machine gun with a few recharges and can keep enemies on their backs by shifting your target every second. Another trick is to use this on a boss or really nasty enemy to get it away from the team, then immediately use Detention Field on it while it is flying away. That way by the time the team gets the the enemy, the Field should have lifted. Also good for sniping around a corner, just run around the corner, fire off this quick blast, then run back. It is quick enough that you shouldn't feel any return fire before you get around the corner. This is probably the most important power after the three shields.

One special note about knockback is that with the new ragdoll physics, you will want to make sure that the enemy is standing back up before you try to knock him back again. If you try to knockback the enemy before he gets up, he could get up WHILE he is being knocked back, which means he can and will still attack you with a ranged attack. It's a weird glitch to see an enemy flying backwards while still getting up, but until NCSoft fixes it, we just have to deal with it and time our knockback appropriately.

Detention Field - Recommended Slotting: 2 Accuracy, (3 Recharge Reduction and 1 Endurance Reduction Optional)

Imagine that the battlefield is like a chess board. Wouldn't you like to be able to take the Queen out of the game until there are no other enemy pieces left? This is essentially what Detention Field can do for you. You can use it on an enemy to take that enemy out of the fight for a short while. I have found three general uses for this power. When soloing you can use it as an alpha strike to make one less enemy that you have to fight at the same time. You can also use it on a dangerous boss or Sapper to take him out of the picture. The third use I've found for this power is to take out enemy 'buffers' from the battle, such as Devouring Earth eminators that they drop on the ground, Malta auto-turrets and Sky Raider's Force Field Generators. After all the other enemies are gone, the Detention Field should have lifted, and you can easily take out the helpless buffer if you choose to (they give no xp as far as I know). A very versatile and useful ability. I also recommend a separate macro to warn allies that the target cannot be harmed, something like this:

/macro Det "team Don't attack the $target! It is Detained and cannot be harmed! Wait for the bubble on it to wear off!"

And use that macro AFTER you've successfully trapped the target. I tried to bind it along with the power, but when the power did fail once in awhile, it just made me look dumb and confused my allies.

Repulsion Field - Recommended Slotting: 2 Endurance Reduction (3 Recharge Reduction if you want to use it alot or even Enhance Knockback if you want them to fly farther)

This is called Repulsion Field but the effect is actually a knockback effect, and its primary purpose is to keep melee enemies away from you by knocking them back. It does cost a bit of endurance when you are surrounded by a mob, but if you are on the outside edge of combat, this should not be an issue. The field itself doesn't use much endurance when no enemies are near you, and it can save you from sneak attacks from the back (I'm looking at you, Stalkers), or it will keep alot of tiny minions off of you (like Devouring Earth Swarms!). It, along with the PFF are the two primary powers to defend YOURSELF from attack. Note that with PFF on, this power is useless, so you would use this power when you still want to be able to attack enemies rather than hide from them. This power is also not as much of an aggro magnet as Force Bubble is, because it will only aggro enemies that you CHOOSE to bump into.

You can also choose to be a more active Defender and run around like crazy with it on to keep all the enemies off their feet. Just make sure you're not pissing off any tankers or scrappers by leaving their mobs alone. The 'crazy man' strategy is very useful for saving your team from a wipe and giving them a few precious seconds to escape.

Another use I found for this power is to save a teammate in trouble. Simply turn the power on and run to them, knocking the enemies away from them. If any attackers are killing your ally, you can also go towards THEM and keep them off their feet for a while. If you get into trouble from this, you can always turn on your PFF to protect yourself and to disperse the aggro you've obtained.

Finally, sitting with it on next to all but the most powerful villains (some Bosses and all AVs) will stack the knockback effect and make 90% of mobs go flying where a regular knockback power might just make them grunt.

Repulsion Bomb - Recommended Slotting: 1 Accuracy and 2 or 3 Recharges (This power can Disorient, but it's such a low chance it's really not worth slotting)

This power works like Force Bolt, but with an Area of Effect knockback and a 40% chance to disorient. Good to save teammates with, good as a battle starter, or just good as a general knockback power.

I think you could use this all of the time along with Force Bolt to keep enemies away from your squishy friends, and even your squishier (post-Issue 6) scrapper buddy, with their consent of course. All the scrapper has to do is pick one target and auto-follow them while attacking, so that when you shake all of the enemies off him, he can run right to the one he wants.

Another trick you can do I call the Big Bang and Crunch. You have an ally hold aggro, either a tank or another hero with taunt. Then you use repulsion bomb on an enemy near him and knock all the enemies back or onto the ground. They then have to get up, shake off disorientation and/or run back to the hero. This is plenty of time for yourself and other blaster types to go nuts on the enemies, hitting them as much as you want. The enemies then come back to the taunter, and you rinse and repeat. This tactic will not work as well as it has in the past because of the longer recharge time on the power than it used to be. You can also use this with Force Bolt to position enemies together or against a wall for Area of Effect attacks. You can then use Force Bolt to tuck in any that get out of the area.

Force Bubble - Recommended Slotting: 1 Endurance Reduction (Optionally 1 to 3 Recharges depending on how often you think you will make use of the power)

Finally we come to the final power of the set, the Force Bubble. It keeps enemies away from you, and pretty FAR away from you. This is a power that should probably not be used all the time, as it is noted for being the ultimate aggro magnet. This is mostly a click-and-use, then turn off when you don't need it kind of power, unlike Dispersion Bubble.

You can stand in the far back of the team formation and use it to keep your squishy friends safer, you can also even use it to 'pin' enemies against walls and corners to keep them immobile. A neat trick is to have your toughie friends sit on the very edge of the bubble, and if they run into trouble, they can hop back just a couple of steps into safety! You can also aggro some enemies around a corner and use this power to KEEP them around that corner, while your buddies blast away at them and you are relatively safe. You can also use this power to help your allies escape in the case of an emergency.

You can also make USE of the fact that the Force Bubble draws aggro towards you. Again, spread aggro is almost always better than aggro concentrated on a squishy, so you can use Force Bubble to push against the enemies and draw aggro to yourself. Then if you start to get low on health due to their ranged attacks, you can quickly turn on PFF. You now should have most of the aggro still on you, but you're almost invulnerable. When the enemies are aggroed by other heroes, the aggro will be more spread out, and will be less dangerous to any individual hero. You can rinse and repeat if another hero for some reason draws most of their fury.

Another neat trick only works in certain circumstances. Basically when you are in a room which goes INTO a short-in-width hallway, you can stand right around the corner of the hallway and turn the power on. Then whenever any mobs are aggroed, this acts as a barrier which they cannot pass. You can use this either just to keep the enemies away from your teammates, who are in the room and can blast at a safe distance, OR as a great way to give your allies a safe retreat.

Finally, the enemies in the game have two 'modes', melee mode (when you can see a melee weapon in their hand) and ranged mode. It usually takes a few seconds for them to switch modes, and when they are in melee mode, they many times prefer to STAY in melee mode. You can take advantage of this with the Force Bubble. You can either wait until the enemies are engaged in melee battle with another hero, or engage them yourself up close and personal, and then instantly activate the power. For many of the enemies, they will still remain in melee mode for a while and will keep trying to run at you rather than attack. If you continually back up and move forward again, moving the bubble and pushing against them in the process, you should be able to keep this up for a good while.

Secondaries - Our Offensive Powers

I will not go into too much detail about this subject, since there are so many possibilities to test here and I don't have the time or patience to test every build. The only note that I will make is that the Philotic Knight is actually an electrical blast secondary, and that the secondary effect of electrical blast (endurance drain) is a Godsend. There is nothing more beautiful in the world than using a Short Circuit or two (using PFF between uses to protect yourself) and watching the the mob of enemies sits helpless staring at you, devoid of any will to do ANYTHING. Defenders got all of their secondary effects boosted in Issue 5 so take full advantage of this!

Here are the list of the blast powers and their secondary effects. As a Defender, I would recommend slotting at least one enhancement in the 'secondary effect' of each of the powers in these sets if you have the slots to spare:

<ul type="square">[*]Archery - None (Has an inherent Accuracy Bonus to all of the powers instead)[*]Dark Blast - Reduce Enemy's Accuracy (ToHit DeBuff)[*]Electrical Blast - Endurance Drain (Can make enemies helpless, and can sometimes return endurance to you)[*]Energy Blast - Knockback (incase you wanted even MORE of that wonderful knockback!)[*]Psychic Blast - Slow Enemy Recharge (and the set has alot of controllerish powers)[*]Radiation Blast - Reduce Enemy's Defense (Defense DeBuff)[*]Sonic Blast - Reduce Enemy's Damage Resistance (Resistence DeBuff)[/list]
As for our secondary blasting powers however, our role as stated before is to DEFEND. There are many FF defenders out there that see themselves as a blaster that can buff. I see this as the biggest mistake an FF defender can possibly make, since they only do about 2/3rds of the damage of a blaster with the same damage slotted (estimated). While you are out there adding your minuscule damage to the team's effort, some of your teammates may be dying by your side. While you may have offensive powers, these can and should be used in a DEFENSIVE way whenever possible rather than an offensive way. If you have all of your allies shielded up and they don't seem to need any other type of defense, then go ahead and blast away all you want, but be ready to switch into defensive mode at a moment's notice.

Repeat my mantra over and over again:

My primary powers should be PRIMARY, my secondary powers should be SECONDARY.

If you want to play a blaster, PLAY A BLASTER.

But hey, it's your $15, do what you want. I'm just trying to help you be the most effective Defender you can be. And a dead enemy is not attacking your team, so there is something to say about slotting some extra damage in a couple of powers...

Conclusion

I hope that this guide has been enlightening and educational to the new and old Force Field defenders out there, feel free to add to this thread any new tricks or strategies that you may have knowledge of. And to all you old-timers out there that are set in your ways and see yourself only as a buff-bot, I truly do feel great sympathy for you, for you are missing out on the strengths of 2/3rds of your own powerset, and you are gimping your ability to DEFEND your teammates substantially. In the end, you need to remember one thing: you are a Defender. This is your name, this is your role, and this is your destiny. Embrace it!

And while I do have alot of information here, you should never rely entirely on one source for all of your knowledge, here are a couple of other FF guides that I strongly recommend reading:

Starshield's Guide to FF/NRG DefTrolling

This guide is an excellent companion to my own guide for the Active Defender.

And

CDN_Guardian's Guide to FF/NRG Offenders v5

A great guide for the person that wants to play an Offender or a solo bubbler.

Appendix

In this section I will be copying and pasting information that I find from other players that do not directly fit into my guide for some reason or another.

Here are some nice tips from fellow bubbler McNum

[ QUOTE ]

I do like your PFF strategies. Might want to highlight that with Dispersion Bubble and PFF both running you are still weak to Sleep effects. Do not do this against foes with Blind. It's our weak spot.

Also, Repulsion Bomb has a long activation. Really long activation. I had it once, but it wasn't that useful to me. I find Energy Torrent a much better positioning tool on my own FF Defender. Fires faster, hits harder.

Also there is an interesting synergy with certain Pool powers, which you don't mention at all. Now Medicine is simple enough. Hits get through once in a while no matter how good the defense is, spot healing can be nice. Aid Self + PFF is a particularly fun combo. You rarely get interrupted. The Medicine Rez... is ok. It rezzes to full HP, but no End.

Another pool power you might want to consider is Maneuvers. On anything but a Forcefield Defender this is a mediocre choice. On a Forcefielder, it's the difference between 40% and 45% defense, which is very significant. Why? Base minion accuracy is 50%. 50-40 is 10%. 50-45 is 5%. So Maneuvers can double the defensive power of a bubbled teammate who's inside the Dispersion bubble. Quite handy.

In the same style as Maneuvers, you can look at Grant Invis. Also a so-so Defense Buff that becomes great paired with Forcefields.

Other things to note... Epic pools. In general there are two big ones for Forcefield Defenders. Power and Psychic.

Power gets you Power Build Up (double power on two sets of double bubbles!) and Total Focus. Also there is Conserve Power, but frankly with Stamina forcefields isn't that much of a drainer. A full team every 4 minutes does take a bit of end to bubble, but that's about it. Temp Invul is nice, nothing special, but it is nice. Sadly, Total Focus doesn't hit that hard for a Defender. Our melee damage is quite pitiful, even TF feels it.

Psychic gets you Dominate, Mass Hypnosis and Telekinesis. Pretty much the controller style pool. Do note that some of the Forcefield powers may not mesh too well with Mass Hypnosis, Repulsion Bomb in particular. MH doesn't draw aggro, though, so it's a nice opener. Telekinsis and Force Bubble might also be overkill to have both, but one shouldn't undervalue the usefulness of Force Bubble in a Safeguard. You can pretty much make the bank lobby heroes only, with the villains trapped inside the bank. TK stacked with Domination pretty much holds a boss outright, but if you have a secondary with a hold already you probably won't need TK for this. Also with Mind over Body, you can together with PFF get truly awesome Psi resist. Like one of the best Psi resists you can get heroside. Who takes the Psi Clock King's alpha? The Forcefielder, of course!

About secondaries. Dark is pretty nice with FF. ToHit DeBuffs combined with Defense is never a bad combo. Energy gets you some alternatives for knockback, like Energy Torrent instead of Repulsion Bomb. But it's a matter of playstyle. You can play Forcefields in many ways, often decided by secondary. Some lend themselves well to more control, others for a more direct approach to defeating bad guys. Don't undersell the secondaries, Defender damage may not be high, but any damage you can do is damage the other team members won't have to and some secondary powers come with massive debuffs, like Irradiate (/Rad) does.

Forcefields is the set to counter Malta Sappers with. High Energy Defense and an End Drain resist so powerful that a Sapper at best gets 5 End from a hit. The End Drain resist of Insulation is massive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Arcas, a vetran FFer posted the following quote a long time ago in one of my old threads. It is preserved here for your perusal:

[ QUOTE ]

The fact is, force field does work. The problem: The majority of the players do not work with force field.

I make force field work. Through brute force. And the way I do it is very unique to me, and honestly, it's not something I expect most other people to do.

My force fielder leads all of his pick-up teams. Every single one. A force fielder (to me) is a knockbacker with a few shields on the side (as opposed to the other way around). Anyone can roll out of bed and toss up a few shields every four minutes. I'm a lot more concerned with what else a force fielder does.

A force fielder that doesn't do a lot of knockback is on the same page as the attackless empath. They have tools to protect the team that they choose not to use. Most FFers that don't knockback and don't use detention field... usually do so because they are afraid of being booted. People don't like knockback after all. When you lead the team yourself, it's not something that you have to worry about.

My force fielder rarely recruits melee heroes. I know knockback would probably annoy them and I wouldn't want to put them in an uncomfortable situation. So they just aren't brought aboard. Mostly he teams with defenders, blasters, kheldians, and the occasional controller when the defenders are a bit low.

The missions for his teams are always invincible. And in them, he plays the role of the knockbacking artist.

Take a team of the force fielder and 5 blasters. Normal force fielders, probably throw up some shields, grab a book, and let the blasters get to work. Maybe safe, if the blasters combine fire and know what they are doing. But you might lose a couple teammates to too many hits leaking through the shields.

The knockbacking artist on the same team: shields up, opens the battle with a personal force field battle charge to soak up a few hits. Launches out of personal force field to unload force bolt on two bosses. Deftly turns to encase the third boss in d. field. Then returns to juggling the two bosses completely out of the fight until the team is ready for them. Everyone probably gets out of this battle with no less than 80% health.

Damage mitigation for force fielders: knockbacking artists >>> shield and stand around. Enemies on the ground aren't attacking your team.

As for power choices:

Force Bolt: The first 6-slotted power, and from 1-25, easily the most used power. Through enhancement, it becomes the chain-gun. Juggle bosses out of the fight, blast melee opponents off your friends, or just plain unload to cause some chaos and knockback damage mitigation. The use tappers off a bit after repulsion field comes into play, but it remains one of the core powers from 1-50.

The shields: Enough has been said.

D. Field: Nicely slotted. Used whenever I deem it necessary. Much like Tornado on my stormer. It isn't rocket science, when my teammates find they can't hit a certain opponent, they just switch to another for a few seconds. They don't like it? No one is twisting their arm to make them stay on my team.

Personal Force Field: The trickster. Decently slotted, especially with recharges. For opening battles, taking initial aggro, ducking inside for a few seconds as needed, and following Longbow forces around in Siren's Call with dispersion bubble, shields, and a on-off-on-off motion with PFF to annoy and confuse the villains of the world.

Repulsion Field: On as much as possible. Takes some of the effort off of Force Bolt which was used near constantly in earlier levels. And leaves Force Bolt for more critical targets. One of the key blaster/defender team tactics, is just keeping everyone close together, so all auras stack and the aura heals overlap and reach the maximum number of teammates. When everyone is close, everything coming the way of the team tends to run into repulsion field. Enemies on the ground, aren't attacking your team. No, it doesn't do this job as good as hurricane, but it does hold its own.

Repulsion Bomb: Main use is the battle opener. Repulsion Bomb, followed by PFF, and running in. In most cases, once those first few shots (from those who managed to stay on their feet) are bouncing off PFF, the rest of the team is charging in with a wave of offensive fury. Once the battle begins, 90% of the time it's already over.

Force Bubble: Aka the "I win" button. I get tons of use out of Force Bubble, completely because I never hang out with anyone that would complain about it. It tends to alternate with repulsion field, because there is a time for one and a time for the other. You never want force bubble on 100% of the time for a variety of reasons. Usually the battle begins, the aggro begins to be split between the team, then force bubble is activated. Giant four branch room lab room? Probably want to switch it off to not aggro everything and hop on repulsion field for a bit. Much like a storm defender in a combined space, force bubble is the warehouse/sewer map "I win" button. And a borderline unfair/overpowered "I win" button. I know this has a lot to do with how I use it, and the types of teams I run, but it works for me.

Getting aggro from force bubble? Switch it off. Can't do that? That's why we have PFF. That's why we have inspirations. And most importantly, that's why we have teammates.

There is a great fallacy in every defender whine thread that the defender in question is somehow the only person resposible for defending the team. You have help. Other defenders/controllers are usually there. And beyond that every teammate is resposible for the defense of the team, regardless of AT. Even if its something as simple as tossing you an inspiration when you need it. You're not in it alone.

There's this public perception that the force fielder is somehow charged with this impossible task of simultaneously shielding up, knockbacking away all enemies, tossing out inspirations, running leadership powers, using his medicine pool tricorder, and keeping himself alive... all in the defense of 7 thin-skinned fetuses who otherwise do nothing but stand around and need to be protected. Your teammates are tough. You protect them, but they also do the same for you, and more. Everytime I hear a defender say, "I can't protect my team," I immediately wonder what the team was doing to protect itself.

Moments before I started writing this post, I just left a group led by my force fielder. Half the team left after a successful invincible mission and I looked for a few more before the next. With all the defenders/controllers locked up in teams or not interested, the final team ended up being myself (force fielder), a peacebringer, 5 blasters, and the final addition a ill/emp controller. The blasters were emboldened by the presence of the shields and the empathic buffs/heals if needed. The controller contributed heavily with the illusion powers. And of course I was there with knockbacking fury, force bubble, and shields. But the fact is, the major defensive contribution for the team came not from my force fielder or the controller, it was from the blasters and the peacebringer. Sure, we support types did our part. But the sheer damage, rain aura chaos, extra knockbacks, sonic attack/ice attack/peacebringer attack debuffing. These played a huge role that, combined with the support, made the mission comically easy, even on invincible.

There is more to defending a team than heals, buffs, shields, and anchors. Things like slows, knockdowns, knockback, disorient, blast-based debuffs, chaos (from rains), immobilization, intangibility, holds... a continued underappreciation of these tools is rampant in the defender community. I wish I could just plug into everyone matrix-style and download instant experience of playing a storm summoner or trick arrow for 20-30 levels, sitting them in a room with 5 blasters and saying "Ok, figure out how to defend your team." The things they would come up with are the same things PhiloticKnight talks about all the time.

Other issues:

Archvillain fights - I'm not going to sit down and whine because my force fielder is "useless" in 1% of the fights he'll ever be involved in. So he can't knockback. He still has shields, he still has blasts and their related debuffs, he still has leaping in their face waving his arms madly then jumping in PFF. But most importantly, he still has teammates....

Anchors, Knockback, and XP/hour: I've had more than a few people, some of them from the SuperTeams, tell me that my thoughts on knockbacking and chaos are just wrong. That to get the best XP/hour, you have to keep mobs cluttered together, you have to have them in anchor range, etc.
My stormer would be the first to say that in an invincible mission with 7 teammates... there are armies of enemies. No matter how much knockback is present, you can still fire in a random direction and still hit 10 villains, especially in warehouse/sewer maps.
For anchors, knockback is only a problem because most anchor defenders don't anchor the most critical target (read: boss). They try to get cute and outsmart their team by anchoring something that won't be defeated quickly (boss) or easily (minions), in order to keep the anchor going as long as possible. Why not just anchor the thing that needs to be debuffed the most, the most critical target to the team... the boss. Then if any knockback happens, the debuff is still exactly where it needs to be. Once the boss dies, rejoice that a critical target is gone, and in another 5-8 seconds, re-apply to the next critical target. Worried about the team during that time? They'll be fine. Bosses kill teams. Lieutenants hurt teams. Minions tickle teams.
As for XP/hour, a four defender, four blaster team with knockback steamrolling through an invincible mission, really doesn't look all that different from a all-rad SuperTeam steamrolling through an invincible mission. Sure the rads are probably a few steps faster. But they're both in that same category of "ridiculously fast". The slower knockbacking/chaos team is really only dealing with 1/3 of spawns at a time, because the other 2/3 are on the ground, running from rains, or involved with something other than the attacking your team. Thats serious damage mitigation. And any XP/hour arguments become moot the moment ANYONE on the team hits the ground and gets some debt.

Situational Powers: 'Situational' is what defending is. A true empath is thrilled to never EVER have to heal. My storm summoner (who also did invincible blaster/defender teams), would go 5-6 straight missions without using tornado a single time. But when it was needed, he was glad it was there. Likewise, my force fielder would have a blast if he could just shield and fire attacks. But sometimes force bolt has to be used. Repulsion field has to be used. D. field has to come out. Force bubble needs to be activated. I'd rather have the powers to deal with those situations when they arrive, as opposed to having the situations arrive and not having the powers to use. If you're power is situational and you never have to use it... guess what? That means you're doing great.

[/ QUOTE ]

Schismatrix · 05-05-2007 12:12 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Dispersion Bubble
Level Available: 12
Recharge: 15 seconds
Endurance: 0.26/second
Defense: 10% (All)
Status Effect Resistance: MAG 1 (Hold, Immobilize, Stun/Disorient)
Range: 25ft Radius around the user
Important note: Every major set in the game was designed with one major weakness, that was a part of NCSoft's design philosophy. Force Field's major weakness is Sleep. None of your powers provide you with ANY resistence to Sleep effects. However, remember that Sleep only affects you if it actually hits you, so your only defense against sleep aside from pool powers is, well, more Defense!

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if you believe Red Tomax's guide to powerset quantification the level of mez protections granted by Dispersion Bubble are:
# -8.65 Held to Target for 0.75 seconds [Non-resistable]
Effect does not stack from same caster
# -8.65 Stun to Target for 0.75 seconds [Non-resistable]
Effect does not stack from same caster
# -8.65 Immobilize to Target for 0.75 seconds [Non-resistable]
Effect does not stack from same caster

(i know it damn well couldn't be mag 1 protection, or the second minion/lt. Stun or Hold that hit would drop Dispersion Bubble, and i know my FF Defender has been hit by a lot more holds than that without being detoggled. In fact i've almost never been detoggled by a mob who didn't use Sleep.)

Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...

Westley · 05-05-2007 03:17 PM

I don't think that the numbers on Red Tomax's site are MAG numbers as we know them, they look a little high for that. They seem to be some other form of calculation. Sort of like how ages ago we used to have the Brawl Index, before Iakona came around.

Neo_Pegasus · 05-05-2007 04:21 PM

The mag has to be greater than 1. A single application of a hold by either another controller or dominator doesn't break through dispersion bubble, and the mag of holds is 4 in PvP.

Westley · 05-12-2007 02:39 AM

Okay, I guess I wasn't quite sure just how the MAG numbers worked. I just assumed MAG1= 1 Hold. Silly Me. Anyways, anyone that reads my guide, just click the link to Red Tomax' Guide (nicknamed City of Data) for the latest known numbers for just about everything in every powerset, and keep on bubbling!

Steamee · 05-13-2007 04:05 AM

Sorry to hear you're leaving FF/Defender-dom. This is a great guide. Thanks for taking the time to put it together!

Aeoleon · 07-04-2007 01:18 AM

I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss the idea of focusing on defense and blast away. Going FF/Son is a great way to set your opponents up for bucu damage, and a ff/dark def has enough aoe's to really make those bubbles work overtime if you focus on tohit debuffs on your slotting. Personally I'll take a lil extra damage and some nice debuffs anyday.

That being said, "the one and only", eh? Nice guide bud, might even earn ya a few friends.

Tormentoso · 07-04-2007 11:28 PM

You forgot to mention Repulsion Bomb's main drawback: its long animation time makes it almost impossible to control the knockback unless your 100% sure they will not move. This alone puts it very low on my list of powers to use.

With proper slotting, in the time Repulsion Bomb flies, you can pull off 2-4 surgical strikes with force bolt that are much reliable and controllable.

I love Repulsion Bomb's effect and my FF/Eng has it, but still, force bolt does it better with enough skill and slots.

Starfox_NA · 07-05-2007 01:47 AM

I love my FF defender, her only problem is that many missions become too easy and a bit boring with her around. Another issue is endurance - I never get to use my damn Vigilance. I have also started to use FF on controllers.

PFF has more interesting uses in that it has a huge -aggro component. It can be used to ghost - not only are enemies unlikely to hurt you, they also forget you exist very quickly.

It can be used in a short "pulse" to get rid of unwanted aggro. Whenever the mobs start to target you, run PFF for a few seconds, and they'll quickly forget you exist.

For controllers, the "only affect yourself" effect combines very well with the nastier auras, such as Hot Feet and Arctic Air. Use PFF to move into the middle of the enemies, absorbing the alpha. Then take it down and let your aura make the enemies senseless. Makes you tank-like in efficiency.

Westley · 07-30-2007 10:08 PM

New use found for Force Bubble! If a bubbler stands in the center of the Rikti Mothership during a raid and turns on Force Bubble for a couple of seconds, then turns it off right away, it clears the center of the ship and the bubbler should have gained almost no aggro! A good way for the bubbler to help start the raid, or to clear the board when the going gets tough. Keep doing it off and on over and over and the sub-ring around the center will keep the Rikti near the center, but still out of melee range of the squishy heroes/villains! This makes the raids MUCH safer and easier!

Perl5 · 08-06-2007 01:37 PM

Gotta agree, bubbles are teh uber on Mothership raids. We must have had 5 Dispersion Bubbles stacked together on the last one I was on, and Force Bubble kept being used to keep the various bosses and whatnot at bay. Very few deaths, gobs of vanguard salvage. Fun!

I may have to look at repulsion field again after reading this guide. I had it for a while on my Mastermind, then abandoned it due to end usage. My thought now is that my main purpose for FB now is to keep bosses from running into melee range and trashing my lower-level minions... perhaps I can start goofing around with repulsion field instead to keep things knocked around rather than holding them at range.

Westley · 08-06-2007 09:15 PM

Force Bubble is good, but in most cases, Repulsion Field is better. Like I said in another thread a long time ago, where Force Bubble is a sledgehammer, Repulsion Field is a chisel. They both have their places, but I've personally found RF to be more useful in more situations because of the FINESSE that the power provides. You only knock back what you want to knock back, and at the same time, it gives you some small degree of protection of melee attacks. Some melee attacks still get through, but with RF on, you'll never be surrounded by giant grunt breathing down your neck. The endurance cost is minimal when no one's on you, and the effect is very nice.

In fact, you can find many uses for all the powers in the set as I've shown in my guide. Some of those uses are just needed more often than others. But that is the tradeoff that we have for having the best Defense providing powers in the game. With the Big Three on our side, the rest make a VERY nice supplement to keep our team alive when the heat is on. But to play this kind of Force Fielder you have to think ACTIVE, and most people don't like to think active. The set's not for everyone, but it is for me, and I've realized just how much I love it when the Rikti came down again so I suited up The Philotic Knight for another throwdown.

It was like being home again.

Malin0001 · 08-27-2007 05:02 AM

can anyone recomend a IO 's for Personal Force Field, Deflection, Insulation Shields, and Dispersion Bubble?

Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Study Hard. Be evil.

Westley · 08-28-2007 05:53 AM

I've heard people have had good luck with Red Fortunes. Here, take a look at this thread, it might give you a good start. I haven't messed with any of the sets yet, I've just replaced my SOs with common IOs of the same types.

Here_be_Dragons · 08-29-2007 09:24 AM

Thanks for all the effort that you have obviously put into this guide.

It might be a good idea to double check some of the information with City of Data. For instance, CoD indicates that Dispersion Bubble is .26 endurance per 0.5 second pulse. Also it shows Force Bubble to be a mag 10 repel, with only a 1% chance of a 0.1 knockback.

So those are just minor adjustments.

What I strenuously object to is this advice:
[ QUOTE ]
As for our secondary blasting powers however, our role as stated before is to DEFEND. There are many FF defenders out there that see themselves as a blaster that can buff. I see this as the biggest mistake an FF defender can possibly make, since they only do about 2/3rds of the damage of a blaster with the same damage slotted (estimated). While you are out there adding your minuscule damage to the team's effort, some of your teammates may be dying by your side. While you may have offensive powers, these can and should be used in a DEFENSIVE way whenever possible rather than an offensive way. If you have all of your allies shielded up and they don't seem to need any other type of defense, then go ahead and blast away all you want, but be ready to switch into defensive mode at a moment's notice.

Repeat my mantra over and over again:

My primary powers should be PRIMARY, my secondary powers should be SECONDARY.

If you want to play a blaster, PLAY A BLASTER.

But hey, it's your $15, do what you want. I'm just trying to help you be the most effective Defender you can be. And a dead enemy is not attacking your team, so there is something to say about slotting some extra damage in a couple of powers...

[/ QUOTE ]

Repeat Offenders has demonstrated time and time again that there is no reason to limit yourself to being a buff bot. The nice thing with forcefields is that the team mate bubbles last 4 minutes! So, you have far more leisure time to enjoy dealing destruction compared to several of the other defender powersets.

Hell, if there isn't a tank on the team, turn on PFF, eat a breakfree and jump in the middle of that mob. You do need the team to follow you in, but PFF will allow you to survive that initial alpha attack from every foe. Something that even some tanks have difficulty with on an 8 man team.

As Simply_Sam points out, the Sonic Blast set allows you to help your entire team do more damage per attack. Defeating foes faster is another way of reducing the damage that your team takes.

Shield-Maiden, my own FF defender uses Dark Blast. Spamming Tenebrous Tentacles and Night Fall results in accuracy debuffs of at least 18%. Much more if you slot some Recharge Reduction and ToHit Debuff enh's.
FF defense + accuracy debuff = foes missing repeatedly.
I did have to take Stamina to be able to sustain the aoe attacks on teams where there isn't any Speed Boost or Recovery Aura available.

Starfox is also correct that a ForceField defender can make a team significantly safer, to the point of being too easy These days I am finding that even PuGs that my FF/Dark joins will raise the difficulty level after the first mission or two.

It is worth noting that since you can't put Deflection or Insulation Shield on yourself, you usually have the lowest defense of anyone on your team. So, it is important to think about what is locked down (by hard or soft controls) and who is holding aggro, before you let loose with aoes. However this is exactly the same consideration needed by any blaster with aoe attacks. It is a matter of tactics, not a reason to hold back and say "I can't attack. I'm just here to 'Defend' you."

Teams of Defenders are the TankMages of CoH.

Westley · 08-29-2007 12:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]

It might be a good idea to double check some of the information with City of Data. For instance, CoD indicates that Dispersion Bubble is .26 endurance per 0.5 second pulse. Also it shows Force Bubble to be a mag 10 repel, with only a 1% chance of a 0.1 knockback.

[/ QUOTE ]

Later I said.....
[ QUOTE ]

Okay, I guess I wasn't quite sure just how the MAG numbers worked. I just assumed MAG1= 1 Hold. Silly Me. Anyways, anyone that reads my guide, just click the link to Red Tomax' Guide (nicknamed City of Data) for the latest known numbers for just about everything in every powerset, and keep on bubbling!

[/ QUOTE ]

........

[ QUOTE ]
Repeat Offenders has demonstrated time and time again that there is no reason to limit yourself to being a buff bot. The nice thing with forcefields is that the team mate bubbles last 4 minutes! So, you have far more leisure time to enjoy dealing destruction compared to several of the other defender powersets.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am actually a part-time auxillary member of the Repeat Offenders Network, and I embrace their playstyle (or lack thereof!) fully. In fact, if you read my guide a little more carefully, you'll notice that the purpose of MOST of the guide is to DISPROVE the theory that FFers are "buffbots". In fact, one of my closing lines is:

[ QUOTE ]
And to all you old-timers out there that are set in your ways and see yourself only as a buff-bot, I truly do feel great sympathy for you, for you are missing out on the strengths of 2/3rds of your own powerset, and you are gimping your ability to DEFEND your teammates substantially.

[/ QUOTE ]

and to subquote what you already quoted me as saying for emphasis....

[ QUOTE ]
While you may have offensive powers, these can and should be used in a DEFENSIVE way whenever possible rather than an offensive way.

[/ QUOTE ]

What I meant when I said "use your offensive powers in a defensive way" was that you should use them more for the secondary effects rather than damage, because the damage is pitiful compared to a Blaster's. That's why I also listed what the secondary effect ARE in my guide. I WANT FF/Darkers to debuff accuracy, I WANT Psychics to debuff recharge times, I WANT electricians to drain endurance. That was the whole point of the secondary section.

Please read the whole thread and think about things a little more before posting.... man, now I know how Jesus must feel with everyone messing up the content of his intended meaning. Wow.

Westley · 09-24-2007 05:52 PM

Adding on another addendum from another thread here for your use.

FF/Dark is really redundant IMHO. The buffs from FF alone are plenty in the ToHit/Defense equation. There are WAY better ways to assist in defending your team than with the ToHit debuffs.

I would suggest you go one of these routes instead, sort of following the "DDR" theory from Catwhoorg, but in my own special way:

Electrical Blast - and become a sapper, that way they are out of endurance pretty fast AND when they can try to hit you, they fail because of the defense you provide to the team. This is Philotic Knight's secondary.

Psychic Blast - Adds all sorts of controllery-type powers to your arsenal as well as a lot of -Recharge, which sort of works the same way sapping does on enemies.

Those are the two I suggest to complement a "Pure Defender" build.

Now if you want to be more of an Offender and dish some more damage, I'd recommend the following:

Archery - Since all the powers in this set have in inherent accuracy bonus, you don't have to waste as many slots for accuracy, which means you can put more damage slots in there and max it out easily, along with taking more damage dealing powers because you have the slotting freedom.

Radiation Blast - Basically the same reason as Accuracy from the other side of the coin, reduces enemies' Defense so you hit them more often, which means you do more damage overall.

Sonic Blast - The power that REALLY lets you do literally more damage to them, because they have lower damage resistance. This is the secondary of choice if you're just looking at pure damage-per-hit.

The ones I can't really recommend for an FFer are really Dark Blast and Energy Blast. Both because they are somewhat redundant to what FF already does, help Defend and Knockback.

Westley · 10-28-2007 06:42 PM

Throwing in some more of my writings from another thread to save for posterity...

Knockback = 100% Defense AND Damage Resistance. Plus another damage resistance buff for most allies because "in general" ranged damage from enemies is far less than melee damage from enemies, so if they are knocked back away from you and your squishy friends, they can't hurt you as much. It also gives a -50% debuff on melee players' damage-per-second as a side effect. Basically an enemy that's flying backwards and has to take the time to get up IS NOT ATTACKING YOU OR YOUR ALLIES. However, the melee players have to chase it down. Or they could ignore it and attack the enemies near them while the blaster attacks the flying enemy....

Do I think it's worth it to sacrifice some offensive power for defensive? Most of the time yes, because debt really kills your xp/hour ratio alot more than the dent in your damage-per-second. That's all opinion and playstyle preference though, it's very hard to quantify some things....

-------------------------------------------
[ QUOTE ]

Yeah, while its very effective at what it does, easily 50% or more of the high level teams I've been on are really ok defensively without bubbles, and need more offensive leverage. Most other defender primaries can help offensively as well as defensively, FF has nothing there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, but defense *IS* offense if you look at the metagame, which most people don't. If you're out there with a tank on your bubbler, your bubbles should give them enough defenses that they don't HAVE to have all of *THEIR* defenses on, which means they have more endurance with which to attack enemies. Also, if your team has great defense it can take on greater powered enemies without fear. Whereas on some other teams with less defense your blaster may not blast as much because they are afraid of drawing aggro, on a team with more defense everyone can let loose safely and hold nothing back.

But like I said before, this is the "metagame", and most people don't look at that. I do. The metagame is the game beyond that game, the part of the game where numbers don't matter as much as logic does. The metagame means looking at all the powers that you have and seeing how they help/hurt your team and how your allies' powers help/hurt you. It means that if someone is providing something that you have in abundance (like defense) then that means that you can concentrate on something that they CAN'T provide (like more offense).

If you can get 8 people that are looking at not just the game but the metagame, they will very quickly "gel" into a coherent team that works with each other's strengths, instead of fighting with each other's weaknesses. That is a recipe for success, but it doesn't happen often.

-----------------------------------

[ QUOTE ]
Knockback was nerfed so it can never be total protection from incoming damage. Even if you could chain-knockback more than one enemy at a time, they still get to fire back at you while standing up.

Knock*down* doesn't have that problem, but FF doesn't have knock*down*.

Hurricane from storm summoning is better than the entire force field set -- more -tohit than FF has +defense, and better chain-knockback, for what it's worth. AND it doesn't ever make anyone intangible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Knockback was NOT nerfed, it was merely made more reasonable. Enemies now have an invisible "knockback timer", which is actually tied to the "get up" animation. When they are knocked back, they have X amount of time to get up, during which time they CANNOT use any powers. If a hero knocks them back WHILE they are getting up, their timer runs out, and they can attack even while they are being knocked back the second time.

HOWEVER, if the hero is smart, he can see when the enemy is JUST about to get up all the way, he can send a knockback right at the enemy. When the knockback hits the enemy, the enemy has just gotten up, and so the knockback timer is over, thus the enemy gets knocked back and is incapacitated.

I'd say it takes about a half hour of paying attention to this to understand the "rhythm" and timing, but once you got it, you never lose it, and it's not hard.

Knockback is not nerfed, it was just changed. You just have to learn how to deal with the change and you can still keep the enemy 100% knocked on their butts.

---------------------------------

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, and yes, some of FF's powers are very selectively situational, but much like some of the powers in my stormers repetoire, they are valuable enough in those situations that there aren't many things that can do those jobs better. That alone makes them worth having.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

ALL defensive powers are "situational", some are just used in more situations than others, and the more situations where you can find uses for your powers the better. If you want to get a head start on your FFer and all the many uses of the "other" powers in the set, read my guide. It will jumpstart you into the realm of using your FULL powerset effectively. Also, if you can think of even MORE uses for the "other" powers, please feel free to post them in the guide for all to see.

Any Defender knows, when we work together, we work better.

-----------------------------------------
[ QUOTE ]
That's totally not true. Anything that flies or hovers is essentially immune -- all the CoT ghosts, council hoverbots, witches, longbow eagles, rikti and arachnos drones, wing raiders...

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, flying enemies are NOT "immune" to knockback... they will still get either knocked back or even better knocked DOWN. I've actually noticed on quite a few flying enemies when you use a knockback power it almost acts like a -fly debuff for a moment and they get knocked down from the sky, pretty nice actually. SOME flying enemies are merely knocked further up and away into the sky, but hey, they are still further. And yes, I will say that knockback is resisted by quite a few bosses and AVs, but minions? Nope, they all fall to the power of knockback. At least repulsion field.

[ QUOTE ]
...but still gets to fire back. It's almost as good as a 3-second fear.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are we playing the same set??? I've played with ForceFields for over 3 years and 150 levels of pure FF Defenderdom and I've NEVER had the problem you've described. When I knock the enemy back, they CAN'T attack until they get up. The ONLY times they can attack back is if I try to knock them back after they were already knocked back. If I try to do that, then they "get up" while the knockback effect is still on its timer, and so the timer is still going, but they are standing up, so they get to attack. I've NEVER had an enemy that had a "falling backwards animation" attack me. Never.

------------------------------

[ QUOTE ]
1. Its not fun to play because its primarily about buffing your allies pre-combat, with very little in the way of useful combat powers. The fact that a lot of inventive FF strategy involves pool powers only serves to highlight the limitations of the set. I know that "fun to play" is a subjective reason, but the lack of FF defenders out there makes it valid IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually my entire guide to FF Defenders is quite long and has nothing said at all about pool powers, in fact, I hardly even mention the secondaries. I almost entirely focus on the primary, and it's still a pretty long guide. So to say that the powerset has "few" uses, well, I think my guide speaks for itself on that point, most of the powers have uses much of the time. And I spend a TINY amount of time talking about the powers that everyone takes, MOST of the guide is spent talking about the many many uses or the other powers in the set.

[ QUOTE ]

2. Its hard to solo with. 9 powers, none debuff the enemy. With poor damage output, the FF defender is the worst at solo-ing.

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I will give you that one easily, FFers are MEANT to team, and I say as much in my guide. Sure you can solo, but it will be excruciatingly slow to most people, unless you are an FFer in name only and mostly use other powers to speed up solo-ing. Does that mean that the set is WORSE because you can't solo very well with it? IMHO no, because this is an MMO, if you wanted to play solo, you could do that on your Playstation. I play this game not just to play a game, but to play a game WITH OTHERS. But that is my opinion, you can use your $15 however you see fit. Not every powerset is for everyone.

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3. Its forms of control are knockback and detention which annoy many players, and can make team strategy difficult - and since the FF defender relies on being in teams...

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Yes, they do annoy many players, I will give you that, but it's because those players are looking for the "l337357 builds" that can do 1 gazillion damage per second, and anything that slows down that progress one tiny bit is "teh suxx0rz". I understand that point of view, I don't share it but I understand it. Like I said before, FF is not for everyone. IMHO I am glad to trade some dps for extra defense in the form of enemies on their backs. I'm fine with them flying through the air and away from me, it saves my butt from getting hit with a sledgehammer. But then again, I also make it a point not to go knocking everything in every direction and try to keep my knockback powers away from my melee allies unless they look like they are in trouble.

I see FF alot like Storm. It's easy to make an FFer that teams love because they take the defense powers and slot them. It's also easy to make a knockback machine that teams hate because mobs are flying everywhere and no one can hit anything. I think the true FF master knows how to use knockback to the team's advantage rather than disadvantage. That's the key. Then again, on those rare occasions when I team with the Repeat Offenders, they never really seem to care about the knockback in ANY direction, so who knows. Different strokes for different folks.

I guess my main point is, I think FF is awesome. I think it provides EXTREME damage mitigation. That is its job, that is its role, and it does NOTHING else, but it does that one thing so well that nothing else does it better. The OTHER side of that coin is that some players don't know how to use the "alternative" forms of mitigation well, and that causes headaches for most players. I understand both sides of that coin.

The set is not for everyone, but it is for me.

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I've never said that FF wasn't playable or viable - just that it is much tougher and potentially less rewarding.

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And see, I think it's MORE rewarding BECAUSE it's much tougher to play well. I tried a scrapper a few times and I was bored out of my MIND! Go to the first mob, click a couple of attacks, goto the next one, click a couple of attacks. I was bored to tears.

So I went back to my FF Defender and guess what? I had to THINK again! It was wonderful, I couldn't just keep spamming the same powers over and over again, I had to choose the right tool to use at the right location at the right moment. It was like a game of chess mixed with a battlefield of insanity, and I loved it.

It was wonderful.

But once again, some people LOVE scrappers, they love the playstyle, it suits them, so they play it. Defenders don't work the same way as scrappers. Most scrappers are essentially the same thing with slight differences. Most Defender sets are COMPLETELY different and operate in completely different ways from each other. I like that, but what it means is that each powerset is almost like an archetype all its own. So you can "like" playing an empathy defender and hate playing a force fielder. They are completely different playstyles. With all of the differences between them, there will of course be more people that like to play one set than another, that's the nature of humanity.

We don't roll the same way others do. We have limitations and we LIKE it. We like to keep our team defended with Defense numbers. We also like to keep our team defended by doing things that no one else can do.

We can phase shift enemies at will to save them for later, put them in the Glass Bottle of Doom while we take out all of their friends, then when they are all alone we can see the fear in their eyes as the Glass Bottle that was protecting them fades away.

We can precisely Force Bolt an individual enemy away, and slotting that power well, we can do it forever.

We can knock an entire mob backwards, off of their feet, away from you AND leave half of them disoriented.

We can CLEAR A ROOM or the center of the Rikti Mothership of all enemies with one 3 second "tap" of one power. We can choose to keep them out of there by keeping that power on, or we can let them run back to us by releasing it. It is our choice.

We can aggro an entire room while we are standing in ONE place, and then protect ourselves from any retaliation.

We can take the alpha better than a tank, and make sure that that aggro gets spread evenly so that no one hero takes it all.

We can also make ourselves virtually invincible and untouchable by all but the most powerful enemies.

We can't heal, we can't debuff, we can't make you do damage faster. We don't WANT to. We WANT the challenge that comes with our powers, we THRIVE on it.

We are the few, the proud, the bubblers.

You either understand our mentality, or you wish the powerset was something else. If you understand us, you are with us, and we are glad to have you. If you wish the powerset was something else, then play something else, and enjoy it!

ForceFields are not for everyone, but they are for us.

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Hmmm... maybe I need more time to adjust to not having the controls then, because right now I can't imagine putting off the heal till after travel and stamina.

With a good healer on the team it's fine. I can even use Provoke. But with a meh healer or no healer.... ouch. And that's without using Provoke. Solo it's fine. But soloing on Heroic should be fine for any toon.

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Yeah, one of the keys to playing FF as a Defender primary instead of a Controller secondary is that we can't "tank" like Controllers can because we don't have the other controls to back us up. What we have INSTEAD are blasts that do 2/3rd of the damage of a blaster, but do twice the secondary effect of a blaster's. That means we get better mileage out of endurance drains, -tohit debuffs from dark, -recharge from psi and the like.

What that means for you is that instead of taking all the attention as you would on the Controller, you will be taking some of the attention and letting the team take the rest. Or in the case of PFF and Force Bubble you CAN still take all the attention, but you'll want to turtle up as soon as you got that attention so your teammates can "peel" the enemies off of you.

To shorten that a bit, think "spread aggro evenly" instead of "controller takes aggro". It's a whole different playstyle. If everyone is taking the aggro evenly, then the bonus higher defense numbers you give your team over a controller's numbers along with your knockback-repel-phasing powers should allow the team's own natural regen to keep them alive.

For the case of the "streak breakers" or emergenies, well, that's what inspirations are for. At least this is the way I play, and I find it to be VERY successful. There are others that get ALOT of mileage out of Medicine. I'm not one of them but I've seen it done, and it seems like a nice complement to the primary. Usually I'm too busy jumping around to stand in one place and wait for the power to activate. That's why I respecced the pool out.

Plasma · 10-28-2007 08:33 PM

I have to say, I've never been much of a Defender player, but you make me want to start. I love the philosophy with which you approach the AT and FF in particular. Bravo.

Westley · 11-02-2007 04:20 AM

Thanks Plasma, coming from you, that means alot. Your guide has helped me quite a bit from making any major mistakes with my Warshade from the start.

In another story, here is yet another one of my FF-related posts from another thread that I thought I should save for future generations:

DPS is like cholesterol...

The BORING DPS is Damage Per Second.

The FUN DPS is Defense Per Shot!

This refers to the fact that every time you knock an enemy back, it essentially provides you with 100% Defense and 100% Damage resistance for the 5 seconds it takes him to get knocked back, recover, and then get up again. If you KEEP using knockback powers all over the place, enemies will only have a CHANCE to get off an attack less than 25% of the time.

Knockback powers sure kill your boring DPS but it adds a HUGE injection into your FUN DPS!

Airman_America · 11-03-2007 08:50 PM

My robotic/force field MM is really fun to play. The effects of my bubbles coupled with the ranged ability of the robots leaves me with a feeling that I am an Artillery Battery. I have heavily gone for defensive powers to boost any area that will accept it as well. In the end, few things hit me, and even fewer hit me twice. My artillery mows down every single enemy type he has encountered. Absolutely awesome combo set with excellent synergy. The other nice thing about the set is you never feel like you are solo... even when you are.

I am Airman America... Super Hero... and I approve this message!

Westley · 11-12-2007 05:00 AM

<QR> Yet ANOTHER one of my impassioned FF "speeches" from another thread for your enjoyment. Damn I'm one heck of a bloviator! This thread was about the "usefulness of Vigilance", and UberGuy Didn't think it was particularly useful....

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Here's the problem I have with this perspective. It assumes that the Defender is not running these toggles already. If they are not, why aren't they? Why have they waited until their team is getting hurt to run them?

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Once more, if the Defender is holding back and that is causing the team to lose health they are not a good Defender. A good Defender should be using every tool at their disposal to ensure that their team is as safe as possible.

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If I ran Repulsion Field all the time and jumped into mobs, or even if I had Force Bubble just UP all of the time, more than likely I would be kicked off of 99% of teams. That's why.

FF Defenders are generally NOT ALLOWED TO use "all of their tools all of the time" because of the stigma of knockback and repel and the fact that most of their powers directly effect their teammates damage over time. If enemies are knocked back, they are generally also spread away from each other, which KILLS AoE DoT. That means that most teams hate knockback.

When the S**T HITS THE FAN however, the good FF Defender is "authorized" to cut totally loose and knock everything in every which direction and get them all on their butts and not attacking their teammates. This is where Vigilance and the benefits of it kick in the most. It makes FF the ULTIMATE damage mitigator for three reasons:

1) It knocks enemies AWAY from your allies and in GENERAL ranged damage from enemies is less than melee damage. What also helps with this is that enemies that are stuck in "melee" mode often times WON'T ATTACK BACK with a ranged attack, they will just keep running to try to get to you and attack you in melee.

2) Enemies ON THEIR BACKS aren't fighting and aren't attacking, so that means that with every knockback attack that you use on every enemy, that's about 5 seconds break you get from that enemy doing ANYTHING to you. Multiply that by the entire MOB getting knocked on their butts after you jump in the middle of them with Repulsion Field and your whole team gets a 5 second break to get out of there!

3) It draws the enemies attention AWAY from your teammates, allowing you to tank for a short time as the enemies turn to look at the guy that knocked them on their butt. Use Force Bubble and you will get the attention of almost the ENTIRE MOB! Then when the heat is on the FFer and the FFer looks in trouble due to their weak personal defense? Personal Force Field, BAM! The enemies try to attack the FFer and they can't TOUCH him. That gives the rest of the team another 5-10 seconds of protection as the enemies "discover" that this guy is untouchable. After they discover that, they slowly "peel off" of the FFer one by one and THEN try to find another target.

But my point is here, you couldn't do all of that half as well without Vigilance. After bubbling your whole team AND blasting all the time with your attacks, all of these knockback/repulsion/capture effects would be useless if you didn't have the endurance to use them.

Vigilance truly lets the FFer be "always vigilant". Vigilance lets FFers be more than a buffbot, it allows them to attack freely, knowing that they will have the endurance that they need to turn the tide of the battle when things get rough.

That is the power of Vigilance.

Westley · 12-20-2007 07:47 PM

Even more notes from another thread on ForceFields, saved for posterity.

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Force Bubbles pushes enemies back and knocks them down. This power is great if you can squeeze enemies into a corner. Too many times you can't. Also it's radius is larger than Dispersion Field so your meleers have to leave your dispersion in order to get into melee range.

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FYI, if you didn't notice most melee players already HAVE tons of ways to defend themselves. This is something that most people don't think about. The two single target shields should be just fine for melee players MOST of the time. It's the squishies that need Force Bubble the most, and guess what? Their attacks are ranged! See how well that works out?

Also there's the fact that if melee players DO run into trouble, they can easily hop back 10 feet into the protective safety net of Force Bubble and give themselves a chance to take a breath an recuperate. I see Force Bubble as being a power you could ALWAYS have on... that is, if you'd rather not use knockback. Instead you can just sit in the back with your squishy buddies while you all blast away, and if for some reason the melee players are in trouble and they don't think to step back, guess what? You can just run forward a few feet and the bubble comes with you! It's brilliant!

ForceFields = Win

/PK

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Rad Blast.

Try to play Rad Blast without Irradiate (PBAoE) and Cosmic Burst (20' range), and you're in for a rough ride. Even Electron Haze (40') doesn't get past Force Bubble's AoE without slotting for range. Throw in Atomic Blast, and half of Rad's attacks, out of the box, are nullified by Force Bubble.

Calling sqishie attacks "ranged" is, IME, a bit of a stretch.

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MOST of squishy's attacks are ranged, there are exceptions to every rule. And I'm also not saying that EVERYONE should play like that ALL of the time. As I say in my guide, all defense is situational, and so all powers have their proper place and time. Yes, even Repulsion Bomb. It's just got one or two places and times as opposed to the other powers' 20 places and times.

Besides, if /Rads don't slot for Range, who will? Is ANYONE slotting range these days? Maybe it's time that people started exploring the advantages of slotting more than Accuracy, Damage, Recharge and Endurance Reduction. There are alot more enhancements out there you know... they need love too!

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This is not new information, not really. Even though PhiloticKnight leads a minority of bubblers who believe that all the powers are great, it's been fairly well established for years that common FF play is all about the big three +def bubbles.

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There's the key word right there, minority. I think it's sad, but people are more interested in using the same powers and the same builds over and over again, slotted and maxed out for super duper LEET H4X0RZ style play. I like to make life more interesting.

The few.
The proud.
The FF Primary Lovers.

I think that Arcas and I are the only two, and I think he's retired his bubbler, heh.

The same people that say you only need to take 3 (or maybe 4) powers in the set are also usually the ones that say that it works better as a Controller secondary than a Defender primary. I don't agree to that.

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But yes I do fantasize of a revamp to Force Bubble...

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As to all these changes that everyone is suggesting, the only one that I would suggest is increasing the stun percentage in Repulsion Bomb AND increasing it's recharge to compensate. I bet almost every bubbler would agree to take the Bomb if it guaranteed a stun, even if it took a minute or even two to recharge. Because then we would have a use for it through our entire careers, like all the uses for the other powers in the set.

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That depends more on how good FF's other 6 powers are supposed to be. Statesman implied that the dev intent of The Final Three is "always good, always on"

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Statesman had left active development on the game a long time ago, even before the official NCSoft/Cryptic split. He also said alot of things that were "pie in the sky" executive-type talk. He wasn't quite really "in the know" of the reality of how the game actually works for most people, so anything that he has ever said past 2004 I take with a really big grain of salt.

I honestly think Positron and ESPECIALLY Castle are much more in tune with how WE want the game to work, and it's just a matter of getting their attention and showing them that this is a high-priority issue.

But the truth is that most of the subscriber base is playing melee players or blasters (I'm not counting the "farming" or "PL-ing" builds), just because those are the ones that require the least thought (no offense guys) and are the most "instantly rewarding", meaning, you click the power and BAM! Damage. That's much easier to understand than the intricacies of advanced knockback control and enemy positioning using the game's physics.

And among Defenders, Force Fields is just barely above Trick Arrow in number of them out there. I think we're one of the smallest populations in the game. And that doesn't bode well for getting the devs' attention...

I would LOVE to see the Force Field set start to look more like Sonics, where we have 3 pretty good mitigation powers and 6 awesome utility powers. But I doubt that most other players would agree with me.

This is what I would like to see:

1) A reduction in the Defense of Defender Shields to that of Controller levels. And no change at all in Controller and Mastermind levels.

And once you've done that, ALL of the following would ONLY be changed for ForceField Defenders. Controller and Mastermind versions of the powers would remain the same to prevent abuse and them being overpowered. With as much as the devs have used pieces of other sets and changed them around to make the villain powersets, I don't think it's too much to ask to only have Defenders changed and leave the rest as they are. So here it goes:

2) Change the recharge time of Repulsion Bomb to a flat minute OR even as long as 90 seconds, speeding up the animation time so we CAN use it FAST when we need it, and increasing the chance to stun. Honestly even if I could only use it every TWO minutes, that would still be worth it if it worked fast and was RELIABLE.
3) Some SELF DEFENSE in Force Bubble to account for all the aggro it gives us. I don't think our allies should get any extra Defense from it, just us. They get plenty of "defense" from the nature of the power itself and the fact that they can run into the bubble for relative safety if they get into trouble.
4) Increase the "pulse" speed of Repulsion Field by double AND double or even triple the endurance per enemy hit to compensate. If it came back more often we could keep those enemies away from us. I think we should be able to use the Field to protect ourselves at all times, rather than letting over half of the attacks get in.
5) Force Bolt and Personal Force Field - no touchie! Working perfectly. I don't buy into the whole "attack through the shield" idea. I like the "turtling" and I think it's very balanced. And Force Bolt IMHO is the game's most perfect and elegant power.

If *I* could "redesign" the set, that is exactly what I would do. It maintains the flavor of the set and it gives us much more to do.

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I, for one, would like to take you up on that. I have a FF Def and I confess to having a more typical "Buff then Blast" playstyle. For one thing, it's MORE than good enough, for another, yes, it's simpler.

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Honestly at the high end game, level 45+, there really IS almost no reason to use most of your other powers except in one circumstance: you have a crappy team so you have to keep them alive because they don't know how to keep themselves alive without an empath (these are mostly PLers).

At level 45+ ALL of the archetypes (well all those that took APPs) have access to some heavy duty defensive powers of their own, and on top of that, they know by that time how to handle their characters (noting the exception above). So at that level "fire and forget" works.

IMHO it's at the lower levels that the set REALLY shines. When all blasters are glass cannons and the controllers can't keep the WHOLE mob held, that's when all of our other powers do the most good. So I'd say anything below level 40.

If you've got a toon lower than that level on Freedom, go ahead and send a /tell to @Philotix after 6 pm Central and I'd love to team with you. I'll exemplar down to any level.

EDIT: WOOOOO! Post #777 is in an FF thread, what are the odds? Heh.

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2 is certainly what ff-style knockback looks like it will accomplish if you don't care to work at exploring it. But for those who understand it very well the choices should look more like:

1) Incoming attacks have an extra 20-50% chance of missing me. I don't even have to think about it.

2) Enemies are wasting 50% or more of their time dealing with knockback recovery to launch attacks at me. (and occasionally I'm wasting 5-10% of my time trying to catch up to where the enemies are getting knocked)

(Hmm... Thinking about it some, maybe 50% is an optimistic guess on my part. I don't really have data to back that up.)

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Here is the timing for knockback. You activate the power, the enemy starts flying back. They fly through the air for about 1 to 2 seconds. Add to that animation time for them to get back up again, 2 MORE seconds. Add to that the fact that if the enemy was in "melee" mode, the AI tends to like to STAY in melee mode, so it will take them ANOTHER 1 to 2 seconds for them to run back to you. So if you add it up, you get 4-6 seconds of complete protection from EACH knockback. That's good stuff, and not something that most people think about. If you actually add Knockback Distance modifiers to your KB powers and knock the enemies back through a clear unobstructed path, they fly farther, so they have more "air time" AND take longer to get back to you. It's all gravy.

Meanwhile, if you have Repulsion Field on all the time like I do, any enemy that gets NEAR you gets one hit in, and then they are out of the game for 4-6 seconds, with NO action required on your part. You can be blasting away at another guy at the same time the melee-er is trying to gank you. That's alot of protective power, it's like a free lunch. It means you don't have to worry about your own personal defense as much. Even on enemies that are knockback RESISTANT, with 2 or 3 "pulses" of the Field, they will be knocked back. Everything but AVs and Elite Bosses and a FEW bosses. But (IMHO) sadly, most people don't see the advantage of that, so they don't take or use the Field. I personally think it's awesome, but it could be more so.

It SAYS that it's a PBAoE knockback, but the range is actually 7 feet. It ends up being PBAoE because the knockback "pulses" are so slow that an enemy can get up to you and hit you once before they get knocked back. I'd love to see that sped up so that we can use it to defend ourselves, but honestly I can SEE the exploits that that could cause, that's why I suggest upping the endurance cost per hit by 3 or 4 times what it is now, to reduce these kinds of exploits.

But yes, there is a pretty high learning curve to learning how to use knockback effectively. But once you've mastered it, it will be your best friend.

Knockback = 100% Defense and 100% Damage resistance for 4-6 seconds at a time.

FF = Win! /PK

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Yeah, I'd like to see any team thank you for bubbling a Rikti Mentalist when there is no indication of trouble or that your allies will have problems with his sleep powers. That's sure to make them all start grinning, yeah.

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ALL defense is situational. If my team isn't in trouble and I'm the only one being mezzed, Detention Field stays in my pocket just in case. I'm in it for the team, not just for me. There is a time and a place for everything.

If you're on a team that can rip through mobs in less than 30 seconds, then great, don't use it. If you AREN'T on one of those teams, then you can Force Bolt the mezzer away from the rest of the mob and Detain it right away. By the time your team is done with the rest of the mob, the only thing that's left is the mezzer.

Like I said, there is a time and a place for everything.

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The End of this round of copy and paste jobs... man I talk alot!

Whataguy · 01-14-2008 09:36 AM

I just wanted to throw in a few comments in support of PK.

I have a FF/nrg who's level 14 now. I have taken PFF, FB, the three bubbles, and Detention Field. I have discovered that Detention Field is one of the least-used powers in the game -- I get a lot of "WTH is that!" type comments. I have found DF most useful (a) in panic situations and (b) in large teams to get the second or third boss in the rear echelon of a spawn. By the time the melee heroes get to the DF target, it has usually worn off. This is especially true if you are fighting higher level mobs, as the duration of DF scales based on the relative levels of the bubbler and the target.

That said, DF is clearly inferior to a controller's hold power, which does damage and allows the target to be attacked. On a team with a good controller or two, DF is probably not needed. I see nothing wrong, though, with taking it and slotting it with one accuracy enhancement and leaving it at that.

Also, I should comment on the synergy of /nrg with FF. More knockback is good, as long as you position yourself properly. Also, the set delivers both smashing and energy damage, which is nice as few mobs resist both well.

Anyway, thanks for the hard work, PK, and know that there are a few of us who embrace the FF set. I look forward to getting all of the FF powers, even if I don't heavily slot them. I will eventually have the Flight, Fitness, and Leadership pools.

Medic_brietz · 01-28-2008 06:39 PM

awesome guide, knight. does the bind apply to sonic defenders also, since they are similar?
(medic brietz says hello!)