What are the best debuffs?

I assume that anything below EB can be affected easily enough by any sort of debuff, but are there any debuffs that are more or less entirely useless against EBs and AVs?

I have read a lot about -DEF being useless after low levels. BUT, if you have a set where you can pretty much guarantee a significant -DEF debuff at all times, wouldn't that remove the need for maybe an entire +ACC enhancement in your attack powers? I know that's pushing it, as that still doesn't make up for how worthless it is to anyone besides you, and it's not like they're going to begin slotting 1 less ACC enhancement just because they MIGHT have a -DEF debuffer on their team.

By the way, can -RES go negative? Like if I do 10 damage and they for some reason have -100% res (assuming they had 0% res to begin with to simplify things) would I then do 20 damage? Or would the increase cut off once they reached 0%?

For Defenders specifically, I was looking into -tohit. Does the -tohit from Dark Blast hold its own, or does it require Dark Miasma to really shine? I was wondering if I could go with a primary that offers a lot of -RES (and maybe a heal), then try to stack as much -tohit as I possibly could with Dark Blast.

But I don't want these questions only answered with Defenders in mind, because in the future I may want to plan other ATs around their potential debuff capability.

-Recharge seems like it could be powerful if you can get it stacked high enough but I'd still be more comfortable with something that made it so they didn't hit me at all rather than simply less often.

THE best debuffs vs. AV's, in terms of effectiveness, are -damage. Mind you, this is just in reference to how much bang you get from the power after it hits the AV...AV's have reistance to all debuffs except -damage, so no matter what, your -damage debuff have full effect. All other debuffs suffer from 60-87% resistance.

Past that, the handiest ones to get are -resistance, as they have LOTS of that, and -Regen. AV's heal back remarkably quickly via their regeneration, so -regen makes every bit of damage last longer. -Defense can be handy, as it's not uncommon for AV's to have defense-boosting powers, so these can help vs. those AV's. -Recharge and -tohit are handy, but have less effect than the previously described debuffs. -Speed is pretty meh.

(Oh, and yes, resistance can go negative. It's part of why NPC's with sonic attacks can be so painful.)

There was a thread similar to this a while back in the Defender boards. I won't claim it for all slows, but some suggested and were supported that Siphon Speed is unresisted by AVs and GMs. I am not sure on the mechanics of that.

HP debuff.

-res, -dam, and powerful -regen (like lingering rad, benumb) puts you/your team in a position to kill AV's like they are slightly more powerful bosses.

Some -to hit debuffs are unresisted by AVs. Which makes the neighboring thread mentioning /TA pretty funny.

In general I agree, -damage, -resistance and -regen are always useful vs AVs.

Benumb is pretty awesome.

So, what sorts of combo offer the best debuffs?

For the best debuffs going - Dark/Ice defender or Ice/Dark corr.

Unarguably death is the best debuff.

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Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

On a team, I'd rather have a cold/sonic or sonic/cold with power build up/power boost.

Lay down the cold debuffs, then start firing off the sonic attacks. Any AV or GM is going to melt fast.

As for being safe, between the reduced effectiveness of the AV from the debuffs, the shields, arctic fog, frostwork and possibly maneuvers is definitely the way to go.

I used to think Dark Miasma was the bees knees when it came to effective debuffs...until I rolled Traps. It definitely gets my vote now. The thing with Traps is that it doesn't revolve around 1 or 2 themes as many debuff sets do, it does just about everything. And it does them well too. The playstyle does take some getting used to, but it's very flexible once you have all the tools available.

Traps > Rad for buffs and debuffs. Rad is prettier though as the only thing traps gets that is very visual is a giant soap bubble, that is best colored dark so it doesn't obscure vision.

What I really long for when I'm in a tough spot is Slow and -Regen.

-Def and -Res are gravy. I'd rather have -Rech, which functions like slow, but slow is more prevalent.

Hmm, makes me want to look into an ice/rad something.

There's a reason Rad's are so popluar. They are, IMO, the best all around debuffers in the game. Now granted, some sets have specilised debuffage that surpass rad in one or 2 areas. But Rad quite litilery has access to all the different debuffs you'd want. -res -dmg -tohit slows. It's got it all, and can pretty much keep them all perma applyed to an AV the duration of the fight. Mix in a few progs, and a secondary, like sonic's, and you have an AV slaying mechine. My Rad/Sonic is a game changer.

After Rad, I'd prolly say is Cold or Traps. (have an AR/Cold Corr who's pretty epic. Never played traps but here really good things about it.)

Alot of people give it flack, but i LOVE my Plant/TA troller. She's got some REAL potent debuffage abilities.

Based on my experiences playing them, Traps can be the best, but it's not as mobile. Cold does almost all that Rad does (+def equates to unresisted -tohit in the game's calculations) except for +dam (it has higher -res) and +rech (instead providing slow resistance), but the powers come later and the -regen and -dam are single-target.

But if you want an AV to just melt with little chance of killing anything, 1-2 Sonic/Cold Corrs (or Cold/Sonic Defs) will help a ton. Throw in a Kin and a crowd of other mobs and you start to not even notice that AVs are on the map.

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