Silas Plays Support And So Can You!

I do think some of my love for Psi Tornado boils down to the fact I can open with it and eat the alpha. My first memory of the game, 5 years ago, was on my failed n00b Fire/Elec blaster with whom I tried repeatedly to do that trick with and deservedly got mushed into the ground for my n00b ways.


Last week I was on an 8 man PuG where the leading Night Widow stopped at the entrance to a room full of CoT, said "Eeep, someone better pull". I ran in and Psi Tornadoed the lot, ran back waited for them to cluster and then 1-2 Coned the entire angry spawn in the face.


I can haz ranged scrapperlok?

I was reading through the cold section and this stood out.

Good write up on traps.

I know I've been slowly trying to undo the negative smear campaign that TuboSkil put out on FW.

Kay so now all guides have been reformatted. Hooray.

Let me say first that I love your guides. Even when I don't agree with you, they are always informative and fun reads. That said, if you're planning to update things, I do have a minor bone to pick with part of your pain guide. Specifically, soothing aura/suppress pain.

Although it's easy to discount the small heal numbers of soothing aura, it's actually quite competitive with suppress pain's regen. Soothing aura is 21.5 hp/s fully slotted. Suppress pain's (slotted) effect varies with base HP as: 13.05 hp/s on masterminds, 16.5 hp/s on doms/controllers/defenders, 17.4 hp/s on corrs/veats/khelds, 19.6 hp/s on stalkers/blasters, 21.8 hp/s on scrappers, 24.4 hp/s on brutes, and 30.5 hp/s on tanks (minion and LT pets have less HP than masterminds, boss pets are a bit below doms/controllers/defenders).

Given that in most cases the user will be hanging back with the other squishies, soothing aura will actually often give more healing than suppress pain. Now, that doesn't take into account the variety of fringe benefits that the MM version gets (such as no green number spam, +regen getting around the share pain self debuff, the effective multiplicative effect of bodyguard, the way regen scales with +max HP, and omg the green numbers agggggghh), but I really wouldn't call the corr version of the power worse than the MM version.

edit: also, world of pain has a damage buff attached as well. It's small (12% MM, 16% corr), but I'm surprised you didn't mention it.

In all honesty, I think they're both pretty bad. Suppress Pain is just less bad.

Suppress Pain is better because a) ranged pets will generally be standing right next to you so they gain the regen and b) it's +regen which scales, heals do not.

Soothing Aura is alrightish for animation time free self healing to keep you topped off. It's worse than Nullify Pain for ally healing because of the much smaller radius (15ft versus 25ft). I say its only really good for the Corr themselves because as long as it's on, they're getting the benefit. It's a power whose benefit can only be measured over time. It's not realistic to expect anyone to stay in the bubble long enough to get that benefit.

If you need to top someone off, use Nullify Pain. Soothing Aura is good for a)looking pretty, b) being a set mule and c) minor added survivability for yourself. And C is much better served by Nullify Pain.

If I had my way, it'd be a click. Either +regen or +heal, at least you could hit as many people with it and then go about your business.

Thanks for catching the WoP damage buff omission. I'll be sure to add that in.

Wonderful job with those guides, Silas. They are a real joy to read.

Do you have a Mid build for the Sonic/Rad?

Silas, your guides are, and forgive me for using the word because I know it's overused, epic. I laughed reading each one, and I've planned out builds for 3 new characters from these with more sure to come.

Anonymoose, Yeah, those are all really good set choices. TP Foe is a lot more useful for a MM though, since your pets will nuke the crap out of whatever you just pulled in.

Corrs can move a lot faster than MMs though, which is why I personally prefer skipping TP Foe. If need be I can just snipe/blast something to pull it back.

Eldman, I'm afraid I don't. My current build is actually out of date, since it was a softcap ranged build but used BotZ. I've been meaning to respec him (probably softcap s/l) but haven't had the time to yet. Once I do I'll post a build chunk.

Street_Wolf, Glad you like them What characters have you decided to make?

Oh maaaan, these guides are great. I read through the Storm one while I was leveling my Defender... and I've since read through them all. I've made like... a billion Corruptors since then because you make them seem so fun. And I mean... they are fun. That's why I can't decide which one I want to level right now. SIGH.

And seriously, the guides are great to get a good idea of how the powers work together, which is awesome. Very well done.

Wild Streak - Lv. 50(+3) Beast Mastery/Sonic Resonance Mastermind, Amnesty - Lv. 50 Staff Fighting/Dark Armor Stalker

Glad you liked them Crashed

Yay, new guides! Just read your fortunata guide and I gotta ask: why not try a bane? They've always struck me as the melee support class, what with it's stronger Maneuvers and its ability to stack up to -60% res (or -80% with AH proc).

I have thought about it a good few times. Lots of team defense, -res and decent ST and AoE damage. I may get around to it sometime.

One of the few guides bookmarked on my internet explorer. priceless info. please keep this baby up to speed and feel free to expand it. maybe talk about IO sets and HO's and any cool info or sloting ideas plus playstyles. you pretty much have it covered though. great work!

Glad you liked them .

Once I've got more free time I'm gonna be going back over all the older guides again to add/tweak them.

First to get revised will probably be Thermal because I've since rerolled my Thermal. Then Pain because I'm really not happy with that guide.

I also want to chime in that I'm really digging your guides. I normally play melee classes, so it's helping a lot to have a point of reference. I'm currently leveling an ice/cold and I am REALLY enjoying it, and I'm messing around with the idea of a something/Dark.

Thank you, Champion.

I play alot of defenders...and now with GR on the scene I have branched off into controllers and Masterminds. Could you please toss in some of the powers that go into sets like MM /traps and others that might not be in a defender or corruptor version? The ONLY thing this guide is missing is a slight foray into those other powers people may run into and then come back to this awesome guide only to not find them.

Basicly, I want more. Is this a possibility?

Hey Deus, thanks for the feedback.

I do still stand by what I said though. While you can make a melee Fort and put out some good DPS or an AoE Fort and put out good AoE, my opinion and experience says that's not the most effective way to build one.

I am coming from this from the perspective of someone who has one of every Corr so I prefer building to their individual strengths and specialities. If I wanted to bring AoE damage and defense to a team, I'd bring a Fire/Cold Corr.

Still, though. I'm assuming you're approaching this from the stance that you don't have to specialise on a Fort to begin with, which is a valid one. Honestly, I've gotta update a bunch of the guides, Fort one specifically because one of their main 'roles' so to speak I didn't touch upon at all in my guide.

A few quick things to help you understand my viewpoint better though: I really, really don't like long animations ET may still hit like a train, but I don't like being locked in that long animation (though its less bad on a lolmelee character) and in all honesty, my Fort doesn't get a lot of play these days.

She's still a fantastic and powerful character, it's just as I make builds I'm happier with for my main Corrs, I find myself wanting to bring her less. More on that later though.

Thanks for the feedback though, definitely something to think about