City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

question about blaster and defender

BBhumeBB

By BBhumeBB,
Posted on: 2009-07-08 07:45 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion

 

Posted

I was choosing between a Arch/Energy blaster and a TA/Arch Defender and was wondering if one overall outweighs the other. Im looking to almost strictly PVE, and going to be soloing unless I can find a group. Thank you

 

Posted

"Outweighs" how?

The blaster will do more damage. The defender will have more tricks up its sleeve to deal with the various situations that arise.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
"Outweighs" how?

The blaster will do more damage. The defender will have more tricks up its sleeve to deal with the various situations that arise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let me modify that statement.

The blaster will do more damage soloing, and get bigger numbers when buffed/debuffed.

The defender will make large teams do a lot, lot more damage, and be safer at that. The cost being the defender's own damage is relatively low compared to the blaster.

On my teams I'd take the defender long before the blaster.

 

Posted

I also want to say I've seen 3 archery blasters do some very nice farming. Double BU, ROA x3 is brutal.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Q: Which is better, a pickup truck or a Porsche?
A: Depends if someone's going to dump a half ton of bricks in the back.

They do different things.

Sorry if that sounds snarky.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like it

 

Posted

If you're looking to solo a lot, TA/A may be a bit difficult.
Trick Arrow specialises in laying down mass debuffage on long recharges. Things like Disruption Arrow, Glue Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow and Oil Slick Arrow will be wasted on spawns of 3 or less.
You can boost your own damage by -40% Res from Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow, or just have a higher base damage from being a Blaster.

I'd go the Blaster for soloing. You've got enough damage mitigation with the stuns in Energy manipulation to gey by.

 

Posted

Definitely blaster for soloing - while a defender may be soloable even the best defender is going to be extremely painfull until you get some stamina and some decent end reduction slotting as it takes a defender a lot more end to do damage even approaching that of a blaster - either they have to attack a lot more often, spending more end to deal out the same amount of damage or they have to spend end on debuff/buff powers to push up thier damage potential. Where a blaster does higher damage out of the box AND can maintain about a 20%-30% boost on top of that with defiance making the pretty much the most end efficient archetype blue side (masterminds win that award redside). If you are grouping a lot the damage multiplication effect of defender buffs more than makes up for thier end in-efficiency but solo you don't get the same benefit.

Now if your playstyle and concept calls for a defender then go for it - everyone has a different feel for pace and speed of play in this game but if you are trying to decide between the two and plan on soloing most of the time I suspect you will enjoy a blaster a lot more.

EDIT: Spelling errors

Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13

 

Posted

I built one TA/A defender, but have to admit, have never quite fallen in love with how he plays, st least solo (must brush him off and give him a second or third chance, come to think of it).

Archery blaster (Arch/Dev) ploughs a nifty furrow through the bad guys now, in her early 30s. The snipe lures them onto the Trip Mines placed while cloaked, which blow them onto the carefully placed Caltrops, where they are easy meat for the Build Up/Rain of Arrows and follow up shots with the other attacks.

My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.