My thoughts on character builds...H34L0R syndrome?

This was originally gonna be a post asking a couple of questions about */thermal corruptors (not because I want one, instead I wanted to know a bit more about the most common secondary out there ) but as I was writing it it kinda turned into a more general set of ponderings (or perhaps even a rant ). What it basically boils down to is that I was wondering if the whole "R U H34L0R?" thing is infuencing peoples builds in a negative way.

I'll start with the thermals as this is what I was originally gonna say. My highest char (a dark/dark corruptor) is 26 - ok, it's not that high yet, but I've had time to get a decent idea of what's going on - and, while I run into a lot of thermal corruptors, very very few of them have the shields. Instead, they have 3 powers from the secondary and no more: the 2 heals and the rez. Now, my D/D has Twilight Grasp, a wonderful heal (and with it I can, at the worst, match a /thermal for healing power), but I wouldn't think of using it on decent enemies without Darkest Night debuffing them too. So why do /thermals not use their shields to aid their heals? From the few times I've met one with shields (and even then it's usually just the smash/leathal one) it make a significant difference to the damage I take (I'm rather siucidal so I've gotten a good feel for incoming damage ).

But it's not just thermals. A corruptor joins the group and AMs us. "Woohoo /Rad", I think. "Uber debuffs." We go through the first fight and I'm noticing a distinct lack of green clouds around the mobs. So I check his power list. He has three powers in his secondary: the heal, AM and Mutation. If he was level 10 or so, I could understand, but I'm seeing this at 26. I politely ask him why he took the rez instead of of RI or EF. He replies saying the Mutation is his favourite power and he uses it loads. It's all I can do to stop myself secreaming at him. Of course you need to rez a lot - you're not debuffing the enemies. And this isn't nearly just a one off.

But, ok, I admit I've never played a /rad or /thermal, so there could be something I've missed that means they can leave these powers out. What I have played is a /dark. So when I get in a group with 3 other /darks (2 MMs, 1 Cor), I expect some fun. What I don't expect is for none of these players (level 22-24 IIRC) to have Darkest Night. First major battle, we wipe. I survive, along with a...brute I think. One of the MMs tells me to rez. I can't. I haven't taken HT (I regard stopping people dying in the first place more important than rezzing em), so I tell him. So he starts ranting at me for not taking "the most important power in my powerset". Now this is odd, seeing as I rarely have a need for rezzing (apart from myself ) when I've got DN and a load of other -acc debuffs running, yet, as with the /rads, this /dark without debuffs is needing to rez a lot.

I'm not saying this applies to all characters. I've met some rad and dark corruptors that have taken all their debuffs and it works wonderfully. As I said before, I have met a couple of /thermals that have taken the shields, and I love it, but far to often I see characters with heals, rezzes, group buffs (AM, Shadow Fall) and nothing else in their secondary. And the only reason I can really see for this is the old H34L0R problem. And, frankly, there isn't a healer in CoV - yes, some powersets have heals, but those are meant to be used in conjuction with the other powers in the set to protect the group.

OK, rant over

None of my characters are even close to lvl 26 yet, but from what I can figure out at that level you have 15 powers. If you use 2 on the heals in thermal, and 1 on the res, and then 2 on the shields, that makes 5. Add 2 powers from a travel pool, and perhaps 2 on the way to stamina. And then there are 6 powers left over. With the 2 basic single target attacks being highly imported that leaves 4 remaining powers.
Some people might wand more pool powers and a few more from the primary sets, then dropping 2 shields might be tempting.
Personally, I plan to eventually take the two shields with my thermal corruptor, but I like a support role. Some might want a more offensive role.
There could also be the stamina issue. Having several activate able powers running might give some a feel that they do not have enough stamina.

Lastly some people might not have enough experience with good teams. If you often solo or are in bad teams, you will need to first and foremost be able to take care of your self. And them perhaps help get the team back up to speed after the fight. Casual players that are not part of SG's might feel that the most imported thing is to be self-sufficient, that they have to be able to make it on that own, so they do not become depended on finding a good team. Build that can be really grate on a team can be lousy on thair own.

I am still learning how this game works, and have not gotten any of my characters past 14 yet. Mostly because I often makes mistakes with my builds and feel my characters meat a death end, and then start a new to avoid thoughts mistakes. So teaming up might be far more common and necessary at the higher levels. So I am just basing this on how I have seen people build thair characters in other games.

A /rad without either debuff? *Shudder*

I donb't have darkest night wioth my MM, but that's just because i couldn't fit it in without droppiung some other nice power. However, i dont really feel the need for it either, i already have shadow fall and fearsome stare for crowd control, and my pets of course.
However, for somebody to take HT over DN, or Mutate over rad debuffs, I'd like to hear a damn good reason.

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None of my characters are even close to lvl 26 yet, but from what I can figure out at that level you have 15 powers. If you use 2 on the heals in thermal, and 1 on the res, and then 2 on the shields, that makes 5. Add 2 powers from a travel pool, and perhaps 2 on the way to stamina. And then there are 6 powers left over. With the 2 basic single target attacks being highly imported that leaves 4 remaining powers.
Some people might wand more pool powers and a few more from the primary sets, then dropping 2 shields might be tempting.
Personally, I plan to eventually take the two shields with my thermal corruptor, but I like a support role. Some might want a more offensive role.
There could also be the stamina issue. Having several activate able powers running might give some a feel that they do not have enough stamina.

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I can sorta see what you're getting at, but if I was making a thermal, I'd take at least the 1st shield (with it's all important smashing/lethal resist) before I even took a second heal, let alone something as situational as a rez. Preventing damage (and death) > curing it.

And I wouldn't say shields are that end hungry (at least, ice sonic and FF ones aren't...), you're only casting em every few minutes.

I am a rad/thermal corruptor and I have taken every secondary power so far available to me apart from Thaw, I took stamina instead because I like to keep busy, buffing (shields), healing and scourgifying stuff! Unfortunately that seems to be quite end heavy

The main problem I have is slotting, where are my priorities? I have 3 attacks (not counting the uber brawl!!1111 ) 2 are 6 slotted the other is 4 slotted, heals are 3/4 slotted with 2 in each shield. This way I have my maximum damage output with 3 well slotted attacks with a reasonable heal, IMO I dont need to be the healer because so many other powersets have heals too, we work together to make up for the lack of empathy.

I am not however "the healer" I dont feel responsible if you die, its not (always) my fault.

When 1 team mate gets below 70% health, i one-target heal them. Sometimes i do an AoE heal to fix up the masterminds minions.

When 3+ team mates gets below 70%, i drop my attacking capabilities and go fo healing. Im starting to become pretty good at it ( I got the healing badge at level 17. The result of bad teams.. Too many of them in the earlier levels )

In my opinion, a corrupter that is 100% a healer and has NO attack capabilities ( A corrupters damage output is HIGH, so it wasnt made for pure healing ), then he is a bad team player. Afterall, the pure healers are the ones that will start the same healers = leechers bs again.

^I think you've kinda missed my point Cow, these corruptors had plenty of attacking power, what they lacked was the non-healing powers from their secondary - even those ones that would make healing a hell of a lot easier (shields, debuffs...)

Yes, Shields and debuffs for a corrupter are a nice addition. But do we really need healing? Healing power pools such as thermal radiation would've fitted way better in the Dominator's class, not in the damage dealer's ones.

But thats just my opinion.

This is a little offtopic indeed, But there have been too many posts on the US boards already about this subject. This was more a reply to those

If you gave dominators secondaries like thermals, then they'd be controllers, which would be kinda pointless

I kinda like the corruptor as it is - nice damage, with a collection of heals buffs and debuffs (all of which should be used...) in the secondary

As Phrox said, it's all part of the H341Z0R syndrome. Healing is obvious, it makes peoples health bars go up. Preventative measures are not obvious, they just stop the health bar going down.
When did you last see a 'nice debuff M8' comment [that wasn't a sarcastic reply to a 'nice healz']
Shields are somewhere in between with respec to obviousness, as the recipient can see you buffing them.

Big problem here is the people who read these forums mostly allready know that debuffing can save you a lot of pain.

Yup. Let's face it, the reason this happens is inexperience and lack of good mentorship.

For my Rad/Thermal character, I three-slotted my first shields before I ever added an extra slot to my single-target heal. Why? Because it is more important.

You are mid-fight, and out of endurance. Your heals are taking 30% longer to fire simply because you haven't enough endurance to fire them as fast as they recharge. But those shields you cast before the fight are still working because the endurance was pre-paid. The shields are the more reliable life-saver in this situation, and many others.

Or imagine your teammate has a total of 300 hit points of life. The alpha-strike is doing 305 pts of damage. No matter how many heals you have, and no matter how you slot them, how will you heal that? All the pure healer can do is rez him, and he got debt. But even a mere 10% damage reduction would have saved his life, and prevented debt.

The shields, buffs and debuffs prevent deaths just as effectively as healing does, and let you need to worry less about healing, and do more to actively help in a fight.

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Healing is obvious, it makes peoples health bars go up. Preventative measures are not obvious, they just stop the health bar going down.

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Not true! those thermal shields look awesome! I get loads of people telling me how pretty they are
Especially if you have the same graphics problem as me OMG What!

I've seen lots of builds where they focus on their primaries and ignore their secondaries. A fellow Necro/Dark with all the Necro powers and only the Heal from Dark! No Tar Patch or Darkest Night or anything.

But to be honest there's not much you can do except maybe show your own powers off. So I'd Tar Patch and Darkest Night mobs and maybe drop a comment like "Man I love Darkest Night. Look, they can't hit anything at all. ".

I basically spam heals once I've ordered the meatsquad in and dropped the two debuffs. But if anyone shouted at me for not taking Howling Twilight I'd laugh them out of it. Much better to all be alive thanks to debuffs etc than in need of a res and debt.

Plus its early days really. You're going to meet people who are playing Corrupters as Blasters for a while. But you should outlevel them or they'll respec when they've seen how great the other powers they ignored are...

And yep Flaming Shields are great. Teamed with a /Thermal Corrupter who flamed all my zombies as we went. Looked so cool and made such a difference that the other non-necro MM on the team was commenting on how tough they were.

I think one factor that people overlook when they're trying to disect the 'healer' mentality is the whopping difference in playstyle between healing and debuff/buffing.

For me I much prefer healing; don't get me wrong, I'm not an idiot... I know how powerful buffing and debuffing is :3
The problem is that buffing and debuffing is pro-active while healing is a reactive game.

What I mean to say is that healing is partly a measured use ability and a whack-a-mole test; you decide when to heal and if you have multiple powers you also decide how much and by what technique, but you also have to do all this in reaction as the hits roll in. This 'on the edge' gameplay where you have to keep an eye on the situation and sometimes even think fast appeals to me immensely; I love to use my precious reaction speed :3

Pro-active play ie: buffing, however is all decided mostly before-hand. You slap the shields on people every x minutes and that's your job. That doesn't excite nor interest me :/

Admittedly de-buffing isn't quite as bad; many debuffs rely on anchors or choosing which one to cripple which involves nice use of tactical play and even teamwork (DONT KILL THE ANCHOR DAMMIT! XD ),(hence why I like controllers :3 ) but it can often get very formulaic if you're in a good team and there's not really much in the debuff area of those sudden "HOLY HECK THEIR HP JUST VANISHED AND ALL MY HEALS ARE REGENNING!!! NUUUUUUUUUU!!" moments which gets your blood pumping XD


Don't think everyone who's a heal-fanatic is inexperienced or a bad player; some of them probably just enjoy more reactive gameplay over being a buffbot ^^

Interesting PoV, Jemma.

You can buff and heal at the same time though, and get your team to fight higher foes so you still have a challenge.

Buffing doesn't always mean you're locked in a buffbot role, the whole point of buffing/debuffing (IMHO) is that you're able to blast a lot while defending your team at the same time. (Unless you're talking about a /kin trying to apply ID and SB on a whole team... then I understand =p )

I get the idea of buffing it's just that while pressing buttons 4,5 and 6 every 5 minutes might help my team or myself I don't really like doing it ^^;

An akward viewpoint maybe but for each power I could spam every x minutes I could have a power that only needs to be used when you want to :3

Like I said though; I do know how powerful buffs and debuffs can be as I've done the whole defender/controller thing to death and back... I just find it rather boring to play, personally, that's all ^^;

I see your point Jemma...and I agree with you, healing is fun. I'm not saying people shouldn't heal. I just wish they'd use the shields too

I played a FF defender before CoV came out, and the main reason why I started a */dark corruptor is because the every 3 min shielding thingy started to annoy me. I wanted to be more active during fights. So now I can heal if I need to, but the real joy comes from the debuffing and control part of the dark set.

There are a lot of dark MM's out there, and most of them don't have a clue what valuable powers dark has. They take the heal and think that's all they need. But most seem to forget that debuffing speeds things up or makes you take on higher lvl mobs.

Every time I see someone with Dark Miasma who has not taken Darkest Night, a single tear rolls down my cheek.

Then I shout "IT'S GOD MODE YOU FOOL! GOD MODE I SAY!" at the monitor.

Seriously, MaXimillion, drop something less important, such as your travel power or level 26 pet and get DN instead. For me. Please. When you combine it with the debuffs fluffy puts out and the ones in your other powers, you will be able to floor an AV's accuracy, with some to spare.

I can see where Jemma is coming from regarding play style, as I tried a Mind/FF Controller for a bit, and found rebubbling to be tedious in the extreme. I found Dark Miasma a far more fun set to play, as there is always something to do, be it debuffing, controlling, blasting or healing.

Incidently, I'd highly recomend spamming twilight grasp as often as you can during any AV fight, not for the healing, but because it is a very good debuff.

At level 20 I have Fire Shield, both heals, rez and Thaw.

I tend to think of the team as my shield, so anything that slows their health dropping makes my job easier. That includes getting them back up again and unheld.

Can't afford Plasma Shield and there isnt enough energy damage yet to warrant it. But I will be picking it up.

Guess it comes down to whether you are building to defend or offend. Or a bit of both.

I don't get a Corruptor or Defenders reluctance to heal at all. It is one of the things that makes your character unique, that and buffing and debuffing.

Why not revel in it? With the Brute being the only real melee alt in CoV a good Corruptor should be considered a priceless asset to the group. With the preponderance of ranged attack alts to melee ones a group will be leveling far quicker with a good Corruptor / Brute combo. Far more useful than yet another xp farmer - sorry Mastermind.

As Dead Calm said given enough Acc debuffing you get somewhere near god-mode.

I was reading all the post but the only ones I managed to remember was the one about darkest night.

Please take it, for Cthulhu's sake take that awesome power ohh and be prepared for an agonising and painful demise when they all the enemies turn on you because you used it too early

Also pick fearsome gaze, it is the sets second godmode power course not only do it have a terrific fear effect it also posses a nice acc debuff.

And about the healer syndrome, have also met a lot of corruptors with the blaster syndrome that only take powers from their primary.

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Please take it, for Cthulhu's sake take that awesome power ohh and be prepared for an agonising and painful demise when they all the enemies turn on you because you used it too early

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Hehe...I got my second damage taken badge long before I got even my first healer badge (and I don't slack on healing)

As Jemma has already pointed out the build choosen also has a lot to do with how the player likes to play the game!

What a tread like this makes me wonder about is:
- How come some feel the need to try and impose their ideas upon others?
- How come some think their ideas are better than others?

I am not saying, that your ideas about the build for the Corruptor primarily focused on buffing/debuffing is a bad idea - I just don't get, why you think the game would be more fun/interesting if all corruptors build were like this.

Let the players have fun, putting together their builds as they like and learn how to maximize their performance with the build they have chosen.

Others should be careful about telling me what to enjoy and how to enjoy it - or I would surely not be playing with them for long.

I'm certainly not new to this game, but I will tell you this - the least funny part about this game is teaming up with players that think their ideas are so infallible, that they have to spend the entire time playing trying to impose their ideas upon others.

What a waste of everybodys time!

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As Jemma has already pointed out the build choosen also has a lot to do with how the player likes to play the game!

What a tread like this makes me wonder about is:
- How come some feel the need to try and impose their ideas upon others?
- How come some think their ideas are better than others?


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They don't , well ok sometimes they do.

But; it's hard to discuss the merits of powers relative to playstyle if people have differing playstyles. What you can do is discuss what defeats the biggest badguy / gains xp fastest. This gennerally means including an optimum playstyle for any particualr power or set in the discussion.