You might try sonic. The base DPS is less than Archery but 50% of the damage is enery (which is resisted less than lethal) plus they stack -resistance debuffs with every attack.
I think the general consensus is both Sonic and Ice. With Sonic, the -Res that you stack on single targets amounts to a considerable increase in overall damage. With Ice, Ice Storm and Blizzard both give you blaster level AoE damage.
I personally find Sonic to be awesome on a Defender.
Sonic is easily the highest damaging defender secondary overall because it's debuff values unreasonably scaled too high (-20% per stack). Even the corruptor version is considered slightly higher than it should be considering the potency of -res debuffs (-15% for corrs). The blaster version seems pretty balanced though (-13% per stack) with it's blast set alternatives.
Ice Blast would be the 2nd most damaging defender blast set only because all blast set "Rain" powers like Rain of Fire, Blizzard, and Ice Storm are using blaster level damage no matter what AT they are used by. Everything else in Ice blast does about the same damage as other defender sets (minus sonic blast as mentioned above).
EDIT: It should be noted that I feel that defender base damage should be increased to bring all the defender blast sets to a relatively close damage balance which would require that Sonic blast get nerfed in it's debuff to buff the other blast sets.
And to say /sonic is the most damaging we are talking about single target only. /a, /rad, and /dark will all put out more sheer damage numbers due to the AoEs.
And Sonic and Ice both assume you need more than 2 shots to kill stuff, right? Actually, come to think of it, that breakeven point may even be 3 attacks. I mean, you have to hit something multiple times for the debuffs to stack. So, I guess against hard targets, Sonic would be nice.
But most of what you fight in CoH is reasonably soft. Minions and LTs make up the vast majority off most mobs. Do you really get off enough shots to have the stacking make that big of a difference? Even on the higher difficulty levels, it seems like you are not going to get that much stacking out before the majority of stuff is dead. Unless you are running at the bottom end of a team, of course.
the stacking -res will matter on anything important. Minions? No. Bosses, EBs, AVs? Yes it will.
Archery is a very nice set for defenders because it blooms early and late. You get great single target damage early, because Blazing Arrow comes at level 10. By level 25, it can be doing respectable AoE damage with fistful and Explosive. Then of course it gets RoA, which is just amazing all around.
Sonic is way ahead in single target DPS, it is even noticeable on Lts., IME. The low tier attacks recharge nice and quick, making the set feel good. Shout, for all its faults, comes early enough to help in those tough late teen levels. Its AoE is under appreciated, IMO. The quick recharges on Howl and especially Shockwave make them greater than one would think, but Shockwave can make it tricky to use. The big problem here is that it sucks your end bar away, which is problematic in the lower levels, although as a Rad, AM can help there.
I have always been pleased with my Storm / Rad defender, Irradiate and Haze work very well and when I get high enough I get to add Neutron Bomb to the AoE goodness.
I would avoid Ice, honestly. I love the set, but it blooms late and its AoE is lesser than the above sets (for all of Ice Storm's goodness, its recharge is just hella long).
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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not quite since -Res effects the entire team's damage, that's pretty significant when attached to a single AoE like Howl. The single target is however stronger solo and even more so on teams but not quite on the same scale as Howl does on teams.
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Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
And to say /sonic is the most damaging we are talking about single target only. /a, /rad, and /dark will all put out more sheer damage numbers due to the AoEs.
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Ice only really has really good AoE damage because of the blaster-damage rain effects oversight, all the other powers are pretty normal damage as far as most defender blast sets go.|
Originally Posted by coachjames
And Sonic and Ice both assume you need more than 2 shots to kill stuff, right? Actually, come to think of it, that breakeven point may even be 3 attacks. I mean, you have to hit something multiple times for the debuffs to stack. So, I guess against hard targets, Sonic would be nice.
But most of what you fight in CoH is reasonably soft. Minions and LTs make up the vast majority off most mobs. Do you really get off enough shots to have the stacking make that big of a difference? Even on the higher difficulty levels, it seems like you are not going to get that much stacking out before the majority of stuff is dead. Unless you are running at the bottom end of a team, of course. |
Sonic's base damage is lower to account for the -Res, but the Damage scale is same for all ATs while the debuff scales much higher for defenders. The only other damage variable is the AT damage modifiers which don't progress evenly with the debuff modifier. So we end up with sonic blast defenders doing about equal damage to an energy blast corruptor and the other defender blast sets ending up about 30% behind.
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Given that the devs made new pets for Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, and Blizzard for Corruptors, to add scourge to them, but left them the same damage, I'm inclined to think "intentional design decision".
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Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski
Ice only really has really good AoE damage because of the blaster-damage rain effects oversight, all the other powers are pretty normal damage as far as most defender blast sets go.
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
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Adding Scourge effect and making them look at AT modifiers are two totally different things.
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Originally Posted by ArcticFahx
Given that the devs made new pets for Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, and Blizzard for Corruptors, to add scourge to them, but left them the same damage, I'm inclined to think "intentional design decision".
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Just jumping in to say that Sonic does not actually do less base damage than normal. It does the amount of damage (for it's attacks that are actually... attacks) it should based on damage/recharge/endurance cost (except some of the Corruptor attacks, which are screwy).
Edit: It looks like possibly some of the Corruptor versions do more damage to make sure they compete well enough with Defender versions of those Sonic attacks.
It will be Fire blast, whenever/if they proliferate it to Defenders. Otherwise I'd go with Sonic. But then I love my Sonic/ sonic and Kin/ sonic.
Depending on team make up /sonic adds more aoe damage than everything except maybe icestorm and and RoA (excluding true nukes as sonic has one of those two, and it is better than most). Howl makes everyone hit 20% harder with their attacks (preferably aoes). A couple blasters hitting 20% harder means sets like /dark, /rad and other sets with respectable, but slow aoe damage get left behind pretty quick.
Sonic is the best st set right now, but ice is pretty good too under very high recharge. Of course if you can afford the damage procs like apoc and/or pvp IO's then sonic pulls way ahead. Trust me, apoc proc in shriek getting fired every few seconds and doing double damage means a lot of extra damage.
OP, if you want to stick with rad you should try rad/sonic, there is a reason it comes as one of the most recommended builds for defenders.
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Not really, the Damage scalars for the base damage is the same for both defenders and corruptors for Sonic Blast and are lower than similarly shared sets such as energy blast and ice blast.|
Originally Posted by Trickshooter
Just jumping in to say that Sonic does not actually do less base damage than normal. It does the amount of damage (for it's attacks that are actually... attacks) it should based on damage/recharge/endurance cost (except some of the Corruptor attacks, which are screwy).
Edit: It looks like possibly some of the Corruptor versions do more damage to make sure they compete well enough with Defender versions of those Sonic attacks. |
0.84 Shriek
1.32 Scream
0.81 Howl
2.12 Shout
1.00 Power bolt
1.64 Power Blast
0.96 Energy Torrent
2.12 Power Burst
1.00 Ice Bolt
1.64 Ice Blast
1.40 Frost Breath
2.28 Bitter Ice Blast
The only values that make the sonic blast set different for defenders and corruptors are the AT damage modifiers and the AT Debuff modifiers. The problem is that those two modifiers don't scale evenly with each other across ATs or comparatively with other blast sets in damage output. The set is actually most balanced for blasters which seems to be in line with how Sonic Resonance and Trick Arrow values had more in common with controller secondaries than defender primaries at release of Issue 5, the design kind of implies that giving these sets to defenders was an afterthought and weren't balanced well around the defender AT.
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Considering Sonic is already considered better than fire for corruptors, reducing fire down to defender damage with no compensation doesn't help it compete with the extra -5% res defenders gain (-20%) per sonic blast stack than corruptors (-15%). Fire blast will continue to be second until sonic blast gets rebalanced in it's debuff value vs base damage as it is for blasters.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Body
It will be Fire blast, whenever/if they proliferate it to Defenders. Otherwise I'd go with Sonic. But then I love my Sonic/ sonic and Kin/ sonic.
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This is what the Defender and Blaster versions use, but the Corruptor version is|
Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski
Not really, the Damage scalars for the base damage is the same for both defenders and corruptors for Sonic Blast and are lower than similarly shared sets such as energy blast and ice blast.
0.84 Shriek 1.32 Scream 0.81 Howl 2.12 Shout |
1 Shriek
1.4 Scream
1 Howl
Shout is the same for all 3.
Let's use the in-game info:
[Corruptor_Ranged.Sonic Attacks.Shriek]
This is the Corruptor version of Shriek.
For a level 50 Corruptor, Corruptor Shriek does 41.71
For a level 50 Defender, Corruptor Shriek does 36.15
[Defender_Ranged.Sonic Attack.Shriek]
This is the Defender version of Shriek
For a level 50 Corruptor, Defender Shriek does 35.03
For a level 50 Defender, Defender Shriek does 30.36
I'm pretty sure this was done to make sure that the Corruptor version performs better. If Corruptors used the same damage scales as Defenders, the difference between Shriek on the two ATs would be less than 4 points of damage at 50.
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1.00 Power bolt 1.64 Power Blast 0.96 Energy Torrent 2.12 Power Burst 1.00 Ice Bolt 1.64 Ice Blast 1.40 Frost Breath 2.28 Bitter Ice Blast |
If Defender Shriek took 4 seconds to recharge, it would do scale 1 damage, but it takes 3 seconds to recharge, so it only does scale 0.84 damage. They follow the same damage/recharge/endurance formula as most of the attacks in the game.
Though it seems like we might be arguing different things. It sounds like your point was that some Sonic attacks do less damage than similar powers in other sets, and that's true, because they recharge faster. I was just making sure that you weren't saying that Sonic Attacks do less damage than they should be doing, as if they had some inherent damage penatly, which isn't the case. I was just making sure that it didn't become another "Sonic is nerfed out of the box!" thing like what happened when people were convinced the set had an inherent accuracy penalty.
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Single-target, Sonic Blast.|
Originally Posted by coachjames
Okay, I really have to make a Defender. I have decided on a Rad/. But, I cannot figure out which secondary is best. By "best", I am looking for shear DPS. I do not need any control/mitigation/etc from the secondary, just damage.
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AoE without IOs, Archery or Rad, depending on the player's skill. Archery is a late bloomer, though.
AoE with IOs, Dark Blast with three damage procs and two Range IOs in TT, two damage procs in NF. Chain spam cones with matched range, watch the procs devastate your enemies, laugh maniacally.
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While YMMV depending on what kind of recharge we are throwing at these toons most builds I have (or at least have paper tested) have fire doing ~2x as much dps as sonic (before -res). Sonic corrs struggle very much trying to keep pace with fire in st and in direct aoe they aren't even on the same continent (though my earlier comment about forcemultiplying a team with howl still stands).|
Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski
Considering Sonic is already considered better than fire for corruptors, reducing fire down to defender damage with no compensation doesn't help it compete with the extra -5% res defenders gain (-20%) per sonic blast stack than corruptors (-15%). Fire blast will continue to be second until sonic blast gets rebalanced in it's debuff value vs base damage as it is for blasters.
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The gap will close for defenders due to much stronger -res matched up against weaker fire, but the ratio will still be nearly 2:1 that sonic needs to close with -res. That is possible for a defender vs meaty targets though.
*Proc(s) lower the gap further, but I'm not sure if talking about apoc and pvp IO's is very relevant from a balance perspective given their extreme rarity.
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You're serious? I have a cold/dark with perma hasten that currently has TT slotted with the purple Immob set. I could move a few things around to make your slotting suggestion work(already looked at mids) and only be 0.3 seconds from perma hasten. Plus I would get to sell those immob purples for some nice influence.|
Originally Posted by Luminara
Single-target, Sonic Blast.
AoE without IOs, Archery or Rad, depending on the player's skill. Archery is a late bloomer, though. AoE with IOs, Dark Blast with three damage procs and two Range IOs in TT, two damage procs in NF. Chain spam cones with matched range, watch the procs devastate your enemies, laugh maniacally. |
How much does it increase AoE damge going from standard slotting to proc heavy?
Rad Blast's single-target damage actually gets pretty darn good once you've got all the necessary procs in it. Sure, it'll cost you some 400 million to get them all, but methinks it's worth it. I've got my Rad/Dark Corruptor dealing blaster damage with the things. A Defender wouldn't be too far behind (since proc damage is static).
You know it's a good day when Neutrino Bolt hits something for 500 damage.
So, once IOs are introduced, it becomes a very well-rounded set. The AoEs don't get as much benefit from set bonuses since they're actually pretty standard, though the sets (such as Posi's Blast) do enhance them very nicely. It remains a formidable AoE set, but it also gains very formidable single-target damage.
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TT and NF both have 10s base recharge times. TT has a 1.67s animation, NF has a 2s animation. They're two of the fastest animating and recharging cones in the game. Fistful of Arrows is the only cone that I can think of at the moment with a faster animation and recharge time.|
Originally Posted by MunkiLord
You're serious?
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So even before any math is considered, you're looking at an improvement over nearly all other cones and AoEs, just based on the time it takes to use TT and NF and the recharge times (cycle time).
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I have a cold/dark with perma hasten that currently has TT slotted with the purple Immob set. I could move a few things around to make your slotting suggestion work(already looked at mids) and only be 0.3 seconds from perma hasten. Plus I would get to sell those immob purples for some nice influence. How much does it increase AoE damge going from standard slotting to proc heavy? |
Slotted with three standard damage procs (Posi's Blast, Trap of the Hunter and Clouded Senses) instead of damage, the average damage output becomes ~77 (20% chance for each proc to activate, 71.75 damage per proc, so average would 71.75 * 0.20 = 14.35. (14.35 * 3) + 33.8 = 76.85).
Realistically speaking, though, you're not seeing averaged damage output in the game, you're seeing the full effects of the procs when they trigger. Nice, pretty 72s floating over the critters' heads. Do you know what else deals ~72 damage?
Dark Blast slotted for 95% +Damage.
Now imagine hitting a critter with Dark Blast three times simultaneously.
Then twice more (the procs in NF).
While still delivering the full DoT damage from NF and the unenhanced DoT damage from TT.
Statistically unlikely, getting all five to trigger on a single critter, but it can and does happen occasionally. More often, it'll be one to three. But that "more often" is the typical situation for every critter in the spawn.
You'll hit dry spells, of course. Some nights, it feels like I'm not getting any procs on some spawns. And on other nights, I'm literally melting entire spawns in 3.67s (the total animation time of TT + NF).
Yes, I'm absolutely serious. TT with three damage procs (and NF with two) is just... brokenly good. The average damage output is better than slotting TT for damage, the spike damage is just ridiculous... and the damage 40-80% -Res on the target(s) will make you want to take a shower.
Awesome! Thanks for the info. Time to respec!
edit: Also, would the Achilles' Heel: Chance for -res proc better than a second damage proc in sleet?
Proc idea made me wonder about a Kin/dark, but damage procs don't get boosted by +dmg and Kin can obviously damage cap anyway, so proc damage is a lesser amount respectively. If you can find a purple damage proc that can be used with -res, do so. It should tick to 107 damage and then factor in the amount of -res.
Okay, I really have to make a Defender. I have decided on a Rad/. But, I cannot figure out which secondary is best. By "best", I am looking for shear DPS. I do not need any control/mitigation/etc from the secondary, just damage.
I have a Rad/Arch around 26, but I just totally cannot get into the concept. The powersets do not sit well together for me. I'm an archer who fell into a nekular dump, what? Anyway, I'll keep it if that is best, but if there is something more damaging, I would sure like to change. I do like RoA far above any of the other nukes, and that may be the determiner. Since you can count on RoA for regular damage, whereas you cannot count on the other nukes like that, then that may make the difference in DPS. But, I am interested in any input.