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Two words.|
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
Over DXP weekend, I got an electric/thermal corruptor to level 32. I envisioned her as mostly a support oriented character with the capability to solo if required.
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Dual Build.
I know, it's not *just* what you were talking about, but seriously - take advantage, having a more primary-heavy build for when you solo.
Other than that, I tend to find binds help with my shield-ing characters, speeding up the process some. I like to use the arrow keys - left for fire shield, right for plasma, up for thaw on whoever needs it. Forge isn't quite as much a "process" for me, and who gets it depends on the team.
And of course... let masterminds (past, oh, level 10) deal with their own pets. They've got a support secondary, they can keep them alive.
Everything else, honestly, depends on team, level, how things are going, etc - including how important keeping various shields up are. Fire shield? Priority. Not dealing with something doing a lot of energy? Save time and END, don't bother with Plasma. Just pay attention to the situation.
Whether it is defensive shields or resistance shields it doesn't matter. Putting 14 shields on every 4 minutes is a pain, and many people won't play such sets just for that reason.
That's the biggest issue you're feeling between empathy and thermal. Added to that, two of the biggest buffs in empathy are area buffs........the RAs. The thermal set is comprised of single target buffs and debuffs. Trying to keep all of those up, even without another primary/secondary is difficult.
You need to prioritize what you need at that time, and that changes based on circumstance. Depending on how you play empathy (and a lot of people just play empathy and ignore their other set) you may be accustomed to putting everything out all of the time, regardless of if it is really needed at that time. If you try that with Thermal, particularly at the speed many villains teams move, that will be all you ever accomplish.
This shields: There are times you may not need Plasma Shield, depending on enemies. You may have a team where survivability isn't a problem, depending on makeup. In that case, the shields may not be necessary at all and damage buffing/debuffing may be more necessary.
Thaw: Much like CM for empathy, you only really need to worry about this if there is problems with mezzers.
Forge: There are times in this game where damage is indeed superflous. If every spawn is melting, no need to bother with forging everyone.
Melt Armor: Similar to Forge, just the debuff version. Is the damage output good and the team seems to be having little trouble with accuracy? Then you probably don't need it. With difficult enemies, Forge, Melt Armor, and your own damage may take top priority.
Slot your +res buffs and you will grant the team +24% resistance to stack with what they already have. (fire will be higher since both buffs have fire resisance in them)
If they have good resistance already then you will end up healing less.
Focus on the buffs and the debuffs when on team.
When your solo focus on the attacks and debuffs.
You have not hit 38 yet so you haven't expirenced the beauty of thermal completely late game.
Keep in mind, that most folks have patron shields post lvl 44 that will stack nicely with thermal buffs you might not think that in lowbie land currently. Because most squishies have nothing to stack with.
Hang in there, it gets better 
just wait and see 
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Fight my brute
One small pet peeve of mine. Make sure that when you're assessing "damage dealers" you're counting brutes as only slightly above MM's. Because for the purpose of forge and other damage buffs, they are. If it was fortitude, then, yeah, brutes all the way. Brutes has like the second lowest base damage though so please buff them last and pass it on.
Here's a thermal guide I wrote, hope it helps.
Silas Can Burn in Health! And so can you!
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
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The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
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That's an excellent thermal guide, and the strategy tips were very helpful. Thanks a lot!
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Originally Posted by Silas
Here's a thermal guide I wrote, hope it helps.
Silas Can Burn in Health! And so can you! |
Teaming advice...
Keep shields up, all the time. Not hard to do on a 4 min timer. Work in some binds and it's even easier. I use the number keys myself. click a name, then 1,2, next name and so on.
With your shields up, you'll only need to spot heal. thankfully.
Forge other Corruptors, Dom's, and stalkers FIRST. Forge buffs damage based on the targets base damage, not the modifier, IIRC, so, brutes, belive it or not, have kind of low base damage, so your buff is less effective on them.
Debuff whenever it's up. (melt armor)
Thaw and rez as needed.
And if you learn to do your buffing on the fly, as in, inbetween spawns, you'll have plenty of time to blast the crap out of stuff, only needing to pause for spot heals and debuffing.
As for solo play... my honest advice? Don't. With dual builds, it prolly can be more managable to solo, but still, it's going against the grain of the power set. So it's going to be hard. I didn't have ANY fun soloing mine. it was a chore. I only did it when i HAD to and out of pure stubbereness to get my first villian to 50. (my fire/thermal was my first) I would NEVER do it again. Not solo. Thankfully, i don't have too. heh.
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If you can't learn to do something well... learn to enjoy doing it poorly...
Therm does have a lot of buffs on different timers which can be a pain.
The best thing you can do as a therm is have an extensive set of binds to make buffing and healing easier. Here is a cut and paste of what I use in my bind load file:
NUMPAD9 "powexec_name warmth"
NUMPAD1 "unselect$$team_select 1"
NUMPAD2 "unselect$$team_select 2"
NUMPAD3 "unselect$$team_select 3"
NUMPAD4 "unselect$$team_select 4"
NUMPAD5 "unselect$$team_select 5"
NUMPAD6 "unselect$$team_select 6"
NUMPAD7 "unselect$$team_select 7"
NUMPAD8 "unselect$$team_select 8"
MULTIPLY "powexec_name plasma shield"
DIVIDE "powexec_name Fire Shield"
SUBTRACT "powexec_name thaw"
ADD "powexec_name Cauterize"
NUMPAD0 "powexec_name forge"
INSERT "powexec_name Melt Armor"
HOME "Powexec_name heat exhaustion"
Armed with a good set of binds you can shave your buffing time down by a third leaving you more time to debuff and blast.
As for buffing...
I actively maintain the two resist shields on all team member and rotate forge when it's up and I remember. I don't chase people down to buff them, so if they're out of range they're on their own.
Thaw is more of a reactive buff for me. Just remember, it can provide a little help to people trying to escape quicksand or a single layer of caltrops.
Teams of eight will have you playing your secondary more than you may like. I usually stuck to teams of four unless I had another support type that could split the duties with me. Therm corrupters are fun but busy. I really found therm to be more enjoyable on my controller where I had downtime to buff after locking things down.
Hope this helps some!
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You must be new to this game?
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Originally Posted by Jorlain
One small pet peeve of mine. Make sure that when you're assessing "damage dealers" you're counting brutes as only slightly above MM's. Because for the purpose of forge and other damage buffs, they are. If it was fortitude, then, yeah, brutes all the way. Brutes has like the second lowest base damage though so please buff them last and pass it on.
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Brutes have the same damage modifier as Corruptors, but their attacks have far higher damage scales and an 850% cap. Also, the value of the ToHit on forge should not be overlooked.|
Originally Posted by KingSnake
Forge other Corruptors, Dom's, and stalkers FIRST. Forge buffs damage based on the targets base damage, not the modifier, IIRC, so, brutes, belive it or not, have kind of low base damage, so your buff is less effective on them.
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My priority order is Doms first, thanks to their high AT modifier and massive damage scales combined with control that benefits greatly from ToHit buffs. Stalkers/Brutes come next, chosen primarily upon build and player effectiveness. Corruptors generally come last, but certain builds and team deficiencies can catapult them to the top.
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Uh, no... that must be you. Yeah, Brutes SMASH real good, but that's only because of fury. Forge works like Fury and any other damage buff in that it only works off of the base damage, and with brutes, that's pretty low. IIRC, Forging a brute is equivalent to adding 25% to his Fury (less for the MM version!)... nice, but it's really not much. Seriously, there's a reason Brutes have a +750% damage cap... Fury takes up at most 200% of that, and Forge is only a 50% buff (again, IIRC).|
Originally Posted by Roman_
You must be new to this game?
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Really, the good Forge targets are VEATS, Stalkers, and Doms (all have a base damage multiplier close to 1), then Corruptors (.75), then Brutes (.6), then Masterminds (.5).
Again, though, this is all me trying to recall what I read on Paragon Wiki.
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Nope. Brutes are .75, and they have much higher damage scales on their attacks in general. Look at the damage scales on Tank derived Brute primaries and you will be quite surprised. |
Originally Posted by MowDownJoe
Really, the good Forge targets are VEATS, Stalkers, and Doms (all have a base damage multiplier close to 1), then Corruptors (.75), then Brutes (.6), then Masterminds (.5).
Again, though, this is all me trying to recall what I read on Paragon Wiki. |
The ToHit buff is equally important when Forging allies. Because of the taunt attached to Brute AoEs, and their natural tendency to clump spawns better than anything other than a Tank, a good Brute should consistently be near the top of any reasonable list for Forge. They are simply doing more damage, to more targets, more consistently than almost any other AT. That's where +ToHit comes into play.
Regarding forge preferenece...
It changes for me based on the team composition, but the rule of thumb is to forge people that need to hit reliably to keep the team safe--the damage portion is just a bonus.
Good candadites are Doms with AoE holds, Brutes using AoEs to manage aggro, and Kin corrs using transfusion and fulcrum shift to make my job easier.
On teams stacking tactics I just rotate forge equally amongst the non AFK prone people.
Over DXP weekend, I got an electric/thermal corruptor to level 32. I envisioned her as mostly a support oriented character with the capability to solo if required.
I have found that my thermal character is the most active character I've ever played. I'm experienced with empathy (ill/emp and earth/emp controllers), a variety of shielders (sonic/sonic corruptor, FF/sonic defender) and kins (ice/kin corruptor, fire/kin controller), but it seems that thermal has to spread around more buffs than any of the characters I've mentioned *and* find time to blast at the same time.
Most of the weekend, I've spent most of my time playing my secondary almost exclusively. Admittedly, most of my time was spent on PuGs (of varying quality) but I seem have to spend a lot of time first making sure everyone is shielded (2 buffs), the squishies are thawed (gave up on trying to have this up all the time), the main damage dealers forged and then applying spot heals as needed.
Thermal feels way busier than empathy (maybe because shields are resistance based, not defense based?) and it seems like the two shields and forge are sort of three buffs that equivalent to one in empathy - fortitude (I know that's not the case, it just feels that way).
Anyways, any advice on how to play without feeling spread so thin? How do you prioritize buffs, and how much importance do you place in keeping everyone shielded?