To blow bubbles or shout loudly, Which Support?

To make things as simple as simple can be. I'm going to have my mind reduced to that of a peanut...

Err wait... Scratch that...

I wish to make a defender of the protective kind. The thing is, I cannot decide which would provide the better support. The voice, or Bubbles the happy boy.

Of handededed. . . lee, I have no idea what I would use as a secondary for the sound of bad music, but if I used Doctor field good then I considered using smokey's aftermath as the secondary. I'm thinking that depends on if the stunning power in the field set is a garenteed thing meaning I could use it with dark pit to stun a few foes all at once.

So yeah...

The question is... in the team role, who makes the better supporter. Force Field/Dark Blast or Sonic Resonance / no earthly idea?

My overall impression is that FF is more specialized while Sonic is more versatile. Sonic can somewhat prop up a PuG that's weak on defense, but really, granting godmode to 7 newbies is FF's unique niche. On the other hand, Sonic contributes fairly well to a team that's already surviving fine, while FF has to fall back on secondaries and Repulsion Bombs.

Though of course you can bridge the gap by taking FF with a damagey secondary (hello /Ice, /Archery), or Sonic with a debuffy or mezzy one (hello /Psi, /Dark).

Personally, I think you should do both. Blow bubbles and shout loudly. FF/Sonic is a great combination.

FF/* provides excellent team support and is one of the more fun sets to play because it is low maintenance enough to allow you to blast away to your heart's content. It also provides an absurd level of survivability to your team, especially if you take Maneuvers. With just SOs, you can provide 44.5% +defense to all positions and damage types except sonic to your entire team. With level 50 IOs, you can actually get above the soft cap. Best of all, you're doing all of that with 2 reasonably priced toggles and 2 click powers that will take 30 seconds every 4 minutes to apply.

*/Sonic is awesome because it's got loads of -res, which means that you'll be granting your group high quality offensive support while you deal damage, all the better because you've got 87.5% of your time to fill up with blastfending joy.

The choices are Cold, Force Field, and Sonic.

Or the three, I personally would choose either Sonic or Ice because they offer options and comparable protection.

Sonic lets you give roughly 45% resistance to your team, and you can also debuff enemy resistance significantly, letting your team mates take down enemies MUCH faster. A team with two Sonic Defender/Controllers is a team with a win button in virtually any mission or TF.

Cold Mastery gives 15% base defense buffs, same as Force Field, but its PBAoE power gives some resistance, stealth, and a small amount of defense (Though Dispersion bubble does offer Mez protection and pure defense, which is probably more useful in the long run). It also has Frostwork, a power that lets you buff the MAX HEALTH of a team mate. Tankers and Scrappers LOVE this power. You also have debuffs to speed, recharge, resistance, damage, AND your level 38 power lets you recover endurance for the whole team!

Force Fields lets you put bubbles on people and knock enemies back. That's it. The Defense boost is nice and solid, but I find the gameplay boring. There are some people who like the set for Personal Force Field, though. It basically makes you invincible, but you can't use any powers other than those that affect you for the whole time you have the toggle on.

For theme and effectiveness, I'd suggest a Cold/Ice Defender or Sonic/Sonic Defender, since the benefits of the primaries and secondaries stack.

A Cold/Radiation defenser would give LOADS of defense debuffs on top of Cold's defense buffs and its debuffing powers. Cold/Dark will debuff ToHit, as well, letting you do a double whammy of raising your friend's abilities to dodge and making enemies more likely to miss.

I dunno if I gave a solution, but I hope some of my rambling post helps you make a decision.

Read the guide in my sig, and see what you think. If you like it, great. If you don't, try something else.

[ QUOTE ]
FF/Sonic is a great combination.

[/ QUOTE ]

This. You'll be helping a lot with damage (which would be sonic/* big advantage over FF) thanks to /sonic's res debuff, with the godlike protection of FF.

For a squishier team, FF helps more than Sonic against most mez, not only damage, cause while both have a sleep hole in their dispersion bubbles, FF makes the mez miss almost always. Sure, now that most things supress instead of detoggling, a quick sleep isn't as deadly as it might have been in the past, but still...

As someone already said, Cold/ is a great team protection set, too, with almost the same level of protection as FF but some amazing debuffs. But since you didn't mention it, I assumed the set's look turned you off or something.

About your Repulsion Bomb mention... No, the stun is not guaranteed. It has a 40% chance of stun and 40% chance of KB, making it a great mitigation tool, but not guaranteed to stack like you said you wanted. It's even got decent damage for a defender AoE, so it helps shore up sonic's lack there (though honestly, debuffing a bunch of enemies for your team's AoEs probably helps a lot more).

I just got a FF/Sonic to the 30's myself and it's great. But it probably doesn't apply to you much, cause since I'm sort of a lone wolf *eyes sig...*, I've played him entirely solo so far (won't even take the ally bubbles - I know, the waste! - and will take tough/weave instead, getting quite survivable in the process). I haven't really had the damage problems I expected I might. He kills stuff almost as fast as many ranged-only blaster I have played or seen. Right now he has some endurance problems, though, keeping up dispersion, assault, maneuvers, hover and his attack chain to kill everything on his own (and that's after stamina... I'm hoping it will improve a lot after I hit IO sets).

[ QUOTE ]
40% chance of KB

[/ QUOTE ]

It's been KnockDOWN for over 6 months now...

[ QUOTE ]
It's been KnockDOWN for over 6 months now...


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... Yeah, sorry there. I always say KB (even when it's down or up) and was actually thinking "can't do that when posting"... And then did it anyway. >.<

[ QUOTE ]
For a squishier team, FF helps more than Sonic against most mez

[/ QUOTE ]
Uh, Clarity?

Helps more than Sonic against end drain and debuffs though.

Force Fields offer 90% protection and not much offence boost

Sonics offer 60% protection or so and a decent 40% increase in damage output maybe.

I wouldnt' go Sonic/Sonic or FF/Dark because you're introducing some redundancy there. FF provides as much not being hit as you need, so works better with Sonic Blast as an offensive secondary.

Sonic Resonance woks well with Dark Blast for providing the extra protection that it lacks. Or with other defensive sets like Energy Blast, my own favourite.

I always like to balance offence and defence like that.

In the late game, Sonics two holes of no Psi resistance and no End Drain protection really highlight themselves.

[ QUOTE ]
I wouldnt' go Sonic/Sonic or FF/Dark because you're introducing some redundancy there. FF provides as much not being hit as you need, so works better with Sonic Blast as an offensive secondary.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't quite agree with that.

First of all, the -res cap is quite high; Sonic/Sonic is an exceptional offensive debuffer. It may be more specialized than a Sonic/(not Sonic) combination, but it is very effective in that particular niche.

Second, FF does not necessarily provide as much +defense as you need. There are defense debuffs/to-hit buffs, and Dispersion Bubble + Shield + Maneuvers puts you just at around the soft cap, and that's assuming that it is actually safe to stay close enough to cover everybody with Dispersion Bubble (which is not always true). Also, you yourself will not be anywhere near the softcap (since you can't shield yourself): Dark Blast gives you better protection and also provides you with a self-heal when you do get hit.

Both powerset combinations are very specialized and generally stack poorly with other specialists of the same kind; but they are not necessarily redundant with themselves.

After taking a Sonic/ to level 50, my two inf would be Go Sonic Res/Dark Blast/Dark Mastery.

Because shooting Liquefy, running in, Soul Draining that mob then Blackstar (Nova in my case when I had Soul Drain) just sounds sexy.

Force Fields. But if you get to level 20 and decide you're sick of bubbling people, stop playing the character. If you play a force fielder and don't bubble people, I'm cutting you out of the will.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I wouldnt' go Sonic/Sonic or FF/Dark because you're introducing some redundancy there. FF provides as much not being hit as you need, so works better with Sonic Blast as an offensive secondary.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't quite agree with that.

First of all, the -res cap is quite high; Sonic/Sonic is an exceptional offensive debuffer. It may be more specialized than a Sonic/(not Sonic) combination, but it is very effective in that particular niche.

Second, FF does not necessarily provide as much +defense as you need. There are defense debuffs/to-hit buffs, and Dispersion Bubble + Shield + Maneuvers puts you just at around the soft cap, and that's assuming that it is actually safe to stay close enough to cover everybody with Dispersion Bubble (which is not always true). Also, you yourself will not be anywhere near the softcap (since you can't shield yourself): Dark Blast gives you better protection and also provides you with a self-heal when you do get hit.

Both powerset combinations are very specialized and generally stack poorly with other specialists of the same kind; but they are not necessarily redundant with themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good points there, especially regarding the self-protection offered by Dark Blast.

Forcefields is very good, but can also get quite boring as outside of your shielding, forcefield doesn't bring much to the table. Repulsion bomb is about it.

I've never been a fan of cold domination though, I find the shields extremely annoying. Visusally it makes your team very unappealing, bubbles on the otherhand are transparant and easier on the eye.

I have a FF defender and really didn't enjoy it once I reached the 20's. The shields remain good, but the secondary never seemed to do much in terms of damage. The character quickly became quite boring for me, it seems to plateau early and the player has little influence on its effectiveness. All you can do is buff shields and try to keep dispersion on everyone.

Personally I think forcefields is a much better set for controllers, despite the fact the controller version is not as powerful. The controller primary means you have a lot more interesting stuff at your disposal, giving the character much more variety and in my opinion makes it much more enjoyable. People will disagree, but that is just my thoughts.

[ QUOTE ]
the player has little influence on its effectiveness. All you can do is buff shields and try to keep dispersion on everyone.

[/ QUOTE ]

*double facepalm*

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the player has little influence on its effectiveness. All you can do is buff shields and try to keep dispersion on everyone.

[/ QUOTE ]

*double facepalm*

[/ QUOTE ]

What, didn't you know? FF only has 3 powers.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the player has little influence on its effectiveness. All you can do is buff shields and try to keep dispersion on everyone.

[/ QUOTE ]

*double facepalm*

[/ QUOTE ]

What, didn't you know? FF only has 3 powers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Be fair. Repulsion Bomb was mentioned in passing, as well. FF has 4 powers.

[ QUOTE ]
Personally I think forcefields is a much better set for controllers, despite the fact the controller version is not as powerful.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think FF is actually a much worse powerset for Controllers than Defenders, if all you're looking at are the bubbles. At least on the Defender, you give as much defense as possible, and when you're done bubbling, you're free to blast away.

On a Controller, not only are your bubbles not as strong, but once you buff the team and control the mob, then what do you do? Hold them again? Admire all the cool looking animations everyone else is using to actually accomplish something in the fight? I would go bored out of my mind playing like that.

If that's what is important to you and that is how you want to play, then I encourage you to pursue it. Me? I'll be taking all the powers in FF (except maybe Detention Field; I never have like intangibles), because they are all good, and I like them.

[ QUOTE ]
taking all the powers in FF (except maybe Detention Field; I never have like intangibles), because they are all good, and I like them.

[/ QUOTE ]

YAY! My faith in humanity is RESTORED!!!!!

I'm so sorry you died in the movie, Dr. Nick.

It was pretty funny though.... Dr. Nick appears and says "Hey everybody!" and then gets killed, and then I literally said out loud by reflex in the theater "Bye Dr. Nick!" really really loud. Then everyone stared at me and I sat down uncomfortably.... it was pretty funny though looking back at it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
taking all the powers in FF (except maybe Detention Field; I never have like intangibles), because they are all good, and I like them.

[/ QUOTE ]

YAY! My faith in humanity is RESTORED!!!!!

I'm so sorry you died in the movie, Dr. Nick.

It was pretty funny though.... Dr. Nick appears and says "Hey everybody!" and then gets killed, and then I literally said out loud by reflex in the theater "Bye Dr. Nick!" really really loud. Then everyone stared at me and I sat down uncomfortably.... it was pretty funny though looking back at it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's your fault for letting the bubbles on him drop. Seriously... what kind of FF/* defender are you?

[ QUOTE ]
First of all, the -res cap is quite high; Sonic/Sonic is an exceptional offensive debuffer. It may be more specialized than a Sonic/(not Sonic) combination, but it is very effective in that particular niche.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe the -Res cap is 300% so a single sonic/sonic couldn't come near it. The best you could reliably get is around 120-150% -Res on a single target and 50% with area effects.

[ QUOTE ]
I wish to make a defender of the protective kind.

[/ QUOTE ]

With that sentence in mind, the solution seems obvious to me. FF has the more protective 'Don't touch my friends jerk!' feel to it.

I'd never fully appreciated my Sonic/Sonic until the higher end content with multiple AV's. It's fun to watch them melt. She is my STF toon, and is exponentially more useful than a bubble boy. I will concede that for everyday content, FF pulls slightly ahead. I blame the recharge on Liquefy.

Or, you could just make a Cold and get the best of both worlds. So many choices...

I know this is blasphemy on the Defender boards, but I'm going to back someone up and say I think you should at least consider rolling a Controller. The shields will be weaker but they also be getting tested less often, because things will be shooting at you less.

Key Control sets to I'd consider are (IMO):

Ice - Ice's mainstay is Arctic Air, a toggle power that slows mobs, terrifies them (making them run slowly away from you) and confuses them. Because this power is always up there is less need to baby sit your controls, and replacing buffs is that much easier. The biggest risk of death to an Ice troller is getting mezzed, and both FF and Sonic protect you against that possibility. Additionally, if you decide to solo, you have a pet on which to place your shields and Sonic's debuff ring. If you go FF, you can enter Personal Force Field, run to melee while letting things waste one shot on you, then Arctic Air the group so they can't shoot again.

Earth - A very clicky set compared to Ice, but comes with a monstrously resistant pet that is nearly invincible when protected by your shields. Add to this mix what most consider the best Hold in the game (Volcanic Gasses) and a very reliable AoE stun (Stalagmites). Again if you go Sonic you will have a place to hang your debuff donut.

Plant - Like Ice and Earth you have a reliable place to hang your buffs (tho the Plant pet is less reliable about entering melee than either of those sets). Plant's Confuse power will take a lot of pressure off your team.

Other sets would work well too (including Defender sets), just make sure you consider all of the available options.

If you roll a Force Fields controller and don't keep the bubbles up on people, I'm writing you out of the will. Just saying.

[ QUOTE ]
If you roll a Force Fields controller and don't keep the bubbles up on people, I'm writing you out of the will. Just saying.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think you're writing all of us out of the will since, frankly, I don't think you like people.

Just sayin'.

Dark Miasma's also a good set for keeping (most) teammates alive. Although it's lack of pre-emptive buffing means zerging blasters will face plant around you. A lot. But you have an AoE rez to cover that. And the smart Dark Miasma player has Vengeance.

But ... Dark is a relatively busy primary compared to FF, and doesn't leave you, the defender, with a whole lot of time left over for punching mobs in the face.

FWIW, it took me 5 years to level my ff / rad to 50.