Sonic, FF, and Dark seem to be all incredibly rare on defenders it seems these days. I think the reason is because all three of those sets are too specialized which makes them unfavorable compared to variety sets like Cold, Empathy, and Rad when teams start stacking support. Kin doesn't suffer this because it's on the opposite end of the spectrum where Offensive buffs can function as a defense by killing faster.
Also in the case of FF and Sonic, both sets have powers that are either highly situational and/or require teammates/pets to even be functional.
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Mind you i feel cold will eventually gain ground and possibly bump dark and storm within the next 12 months.
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Unless Thermal gets ported or the devs stop capping task forces with 220,000 hp regen machines.
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Sonic, FF, and Dark seem to be all incredibly rare on defenders it seems these days. I think the reason is because all three of those sets are too specialized which makes them unfavorable compared to variety sets like Cold, Empathy, and Rad when teams start stacking support. Kin doesn't suffer this because it's on the opposite end of the spectrum where Offensive buffs can function as a defense by killing faster.
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Say what?! Granted, I haven't played blueside in a while, but how does Dark Miasma even begin to be described as "rare" and specialized? The only thing it doesn't bring to the table is defense debuffing.
Athletic Support.
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Sonic, FF, and Dark seem to be all incredibly rare on defenders it seems these days. I think the reason is because all three of those sets are too specialized which makes them unfavorable compared to variety sets like Cold, Empathy, and Rad when teams start stacking support. Kin doesn't suffer this because it's on the opposite end of the spectrum where Offensive buffs can function as a defense by killing faster.
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Say what?! Granted, I haven't played blueside in a while, but how does Dark Miasma even begin to be described as "rare" and specialized? The only thing it doesn't bring to the table is defense debuffing.
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1 Offensive power and 8 defensive powers. It's incredibly specialized in purely damage mitigation above everything else just like FF and in some respects Sonic because of the ally-dependence of that set's powers. It's a pretty undesirable set when safety of the team is more than well covered by other support sets in the team.
btw only reason people make Fire/Dark Corruptors and the like is because the benefit of getting a -Res AoE at lvl 2 is incredible for secondary set since most sets have to wait until the late teens or late thirties to acquire such a power. Tar Patch however ends up being inferior in ability compared to the powers that do come later in other sets though such as fulcrum shift and Freezing rain/Sleet. It's instant gratification versus waiting for something better later, not really an issue for defenders because it's a primary power for them.
25 radius DN, 25 radius Tar Patch, 70 range cone fear, pet that debuffs and heals. Not to veer this topic off track, but ,,,"pretty undesirable set"???? DARK?? Uhm... yeah, ok....
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25 radius DN, 25 radius Tar Patch, 70 range cone fear, pet that debuffs and heals. Not to veer this topic off track, but ,,,"pretty undesirable set"???? DARK?? Uhm... yeah, ok....
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When the team is soft capped for -ToHit/+Def and plenty well off on -dmg/+res prior to adding the dark, then yeah Dark is really undesirable than say Rad or Cold or TA.
Though I'd still be happy to add the dark, since they're likely to have a rockin' secondary.
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25 radius DN, 25 radius Tar Patch, 70 range cone fear, pet that debuffs and heals. Not to veer this topic off track, but ,,,"pretty undesirable set"???? DARK?? Uhm... yeah, ok....
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When the team is soft capped for -ToHit/+Def and plenty well off on -dmg/+res prior to adding the dark, then yeah Dark is really undesirable than say Rad or Cold or TA.
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So if the team already has a Dark Defender or two, then you don't need more. This I can agree with. Variety always helps, and Dark Miasma is good friends with Kinetics and Empathy.
I reckon youve got a point with Force Fields, Turbo. If a team is never close to dying for whatever reason, then a FF-er isn't going to bring much to the mix because it is the most specialised set of all.
Now that anyone can build a bit of personal Defence via set bonuses, a dedictaed Defence set may be less attractive than one that provides a mix of Defence and Offence boosts.
Dark and Sonic are much less specialised than you're making out though - if you've got a team with plenty of protection they're both going to pull their weight either in terms of rolling through missions or an AV or GM fight.
Dark provides round-the-clock Regen debuffing from Twilight Grasp (both from the Defender and Dark Servant) and 30% res debuff. I'm not sure how important -Regen is these days, I know it was huge at one point when GMs had insane regeneration, and I feel like I notice the difference when I tackle AVs with a Kinetics or Dark Defender.
Sonic provides -60% Res debuff on your target of choice, (higher than any other Defender) plus the big Defence debuff from Liquefy. Thats one hefty offensive boost right there.
/brokenrecord
Play styles.
/endbrokenrecord
Honestly, if there weren't such a learning curve with Storms and if people were so uppity about taking 3 steps forward and getting two free hits off the enemy, Storms would be a lot more popular.
Alas, good storming is a dying breed.
50s: Bla- Arch/Mental Cont- Mind/FF, Earth/Cold, Ill/Therm, Earth/Rad Dominator- Plant/Psi, Elec/Earth Corr- Fire/Storm, Arch/Sonic, Rad/Kin, Beam/Sonic, Psi/Time Stalker- Elec/SR Def- Storm/Dark, Emp/Psi, Dark/Elec, FF/Arch, TA/Ice, TA/Elec, Kin/AR, Cold/DP, Traps/Psi Scrap- Fire/Shield Tanker- Dark/Mace, Ice/Kin Brute- Claws/WP, SS/Energy, BS/Elec
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I reckon youve got a point with Force Fields, Turbo. If a team is never close to dying for whatever reason, then a FF-er isn't going to bring much to the mix because it is the most specialised set of all.
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Have you never saved a team's but by turning on Repulsion Field or Force Bubble and running around as a knockback/repel machine and grabbing all the aggro and then going into PFF?
If not, I pity you, because it's AWESOME. Gives the team just enough time to regroup and recover.
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I reckon youve got a point with Force Fields, Turbo. If a team is never close to dying for whatever reason, then a FF-er isn't going to bring much to the mix because it is the most specialised set of all.
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Have you never saved a team's but by turning on Repulsion Field or Force Bubble and running around as a knockback/repel machine and grabbing all the aggro and then going into PFF?
If not, I pity you, because it's AWESOME. Gives the team just enough time to regroup and recover.
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I know that unless I can find a FF defender with force bubble, I wont even attempt the last mission of Croatea's second contact. Too easy to fail if you don't have someone making sure enemies can't get near the stones. Especially with people who think bonfire is a "must use constantly near the portal" power.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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Have you never saved a team's but by turning on Repulsion Field or Force Bubble and running around as a knockback/repel machine and grabbing all the aggro and then going into PFF?
If not, I pity you, because it's AWESOME. Gives the team just enough time to regroup and recover.
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How many times does a full team need to be saved when they are virtually soft capped already? I get needing to save a teammate, but a full team? The only time I can think of is when the team is facing significant -def debuffs. Outside of that, it's a just a bad team really.
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I know that unless I can find a FF defender with force bubble, I wont even attempt the last mission of Croatea's second contact. Too easy to fail if you don't have someone making sure enemies can't get near the stones. Especially with people who think bonfire is a "must use constantly near the portal" power.
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The mission is more than doable with a halfway decently built team. Most of the mobs come from the right side. There is a stone on the right side where they tend to filter through. Get some people to form a wall with it and suddenly they tend to bunch up there. I've done the mission a number of times and tactics has always won out versus a powerset, or power.
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How many times does a full team need to be saved when they are virtually soft capped already? I get needing to save a teammate, but a full team? The only time I can think of is when the team is facing significant -def debuffs. Outside of that, it's a just a bad team really.
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You're talking to a guy that plays on almost nothing but random PuGs. Playing on bad teams and making them work is WHAT I DO! 
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How many times does a full team need to be saved when they are virtually soft capped already? I get needing to save a teammate, but a full team? The only time I can think of is when the team is facing significant -def debuffs. Outside of that, it's a just a bad team really.
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You're talking to a guy that plays on almost nothing but random PuGs. Playing on bad teams and making them work is WHAT I DO!
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Oddly enough I got bored of leading PuGs because they got too easy to build them to steamroll even on Freedumb. I started to mix stuff up and we would still steamroll. I think it says a lot about the age of the game when then player base seems to know enough now compared to earlier in the game. Yes, the random idiot is still there, but for the vast majority of the time PuGs are rather easy.
Regen debuffs are incredibly minor unless you're dealing with something like Honoree which likes to hit 100% res cap with his unstoppable, making -Res and +Dmg completely useless for the smashing and lethal damage types. Pretty much regen shines versus over the top god mode powers on npcs, but not much on anything else compared to -Res and +Dmg. Which makes Tar Patch the only offensive power in Dark
As for Sonic it is specialized almost entirely in +/- Res to the point they made the Tier 9 use a crap ton of variety to attempt to make up for it. Also keep in mind Liquefy has an ungodly long recharge attached to it which makes it actually worse than Tar Patch because it can't be used as regularly. Also Sonic like FF suffers when the team is already at resistance caps prior to be included since they'll only bring -30% AoE res compared to -30% AoE res + variety of uncapped buffs/debuffs that sets like Cold, Rad, and TA bring to the table.
On the other hand, guess who gets first pick when the Giant Monsters come to town?
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On the other hand, guess who gets first pick when the Giant Monsters come to town?
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-Res/-Def >>> -Regen on GMs
When, without a Sonic, is a team ever at the resistance cap?
Best case scenario is a high level team. Say everyone's packing a slotted Resistance toggle like Defender/Blaster epics at a minimum - that's about 40% S/L Resistance there for Defenders, less for Blasters and Controllers.
A Thermal, who's your next best bet for all-round Resistance buffage, will add about 25%, so we're all at 65% or so, against Smashing, Lethal, and close with another element of choice from the epic shield maybe.
In those circumstances, adding a Sonic not only fills in most other damage types, but caps everyones S/L, reducing incoming damage from 45% normal to 35% normal, a non-trivial change.
Maybe some of the exotic damage types like Energy, Psi, Cold or Negative are getting extra coverage from a Storm, Cold or Dark Defender's stealth aura. But with any of those three and the Defence/To Hit debuff they bring you're really in the relams of mitigation overkill already.
So, in this worse case scenario, adding a Sonic Defender, "only" caps everyones resistance, increases group damage by 30-60% and provides an irregular big grab bag of debuffs every few spawns?
I'd generalise what you're saying here to "any team with 2 Defenders probably doesn't need a third" and leave it at that. I agree Force Field is special, you can get a mitigation heavy team where they dont add much. But Sonic is no less of a toolbox set that Cold, Rad, TA, or Storm.
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I'd generalise what you're saying here to "any team with 2 Defenders probably doesn't need a third" and leave it at that.
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Gah! Heresy!
Best TF I ran had 4 defenders, we were a steamroller.
And...looks like I'll be making a sonic defender. Yep yep... Sonic...something, I wonder what the least played secondary is?
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...I wonder what the least played secondary is?
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On a Defender? I'd vote Energy Blast.
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...I wonder what the least played secondary is?
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On a Defender? I'd vote Energy Blast.
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I was hoping that wouldn't come up...sigh
The Offical Observation of Rank of Least Played Defender Primaries:
9. Empathy
8. Rad
7. Kin
6. Bubbles
5. Storm
4. Dark
3. Cold
2. TA
1. Sonic
Mind you i feel cold will eventually gain ground and possibly bump dark and storm within the next 12 months.