TA: Defender Vs Corruptor

I want to roll a new char and try our praetoria and have decided to go with a Trick Arrow Character. What are peoples' thoughts on a defender vs corruptor for TA? I've been happy with a bunch of sets on my corruptor (kin, traps, rad) but others seem to lack the oomph of the defender versions.

Myself, I went Defender since I wanted the debuffing powers first.

The corrupter version gives you a little more damage out of your primary, but not as much as you might think. The reason is that TA on a defender gets -20% resistance out of Acid Arrow vs 15% on a corrupter and the same out of Disruption Arrow. This means if you have both debuffs active, Aimed Shot base damage would be 50.54 on a defender vs. 54.21 on a corrupter (level 50). That's a 7.3% damage bonus for corrupters vs. a 15.5% difference normally (41.7/36.1 base damage). When you solo or are on small teams you actually outdamage corrupters

On top of that, defenders get a MASSIVE 31.3% -damage out of Poison Gas Arrow vs. only a 20% on corrupters. I never take PGA on controllers or corrupters, but it's hard to pass up a 30+% AoE damage redux. That's a lot.

But wait! There's more! Fully slotted, Flash Arrow on defenders can get close to -9.5% -tohit vs. roughly 7.7% on corrupters. Combine that with higher defender defense values for defensive powers like Weave and Combat Jumping and you can actually cap ranged defense relatively easily on defenders. Much tougher to do on corrupters.

But if you order today you also get... no difference in your biggest damage power. Oil Slick Arrow has the same damage on both.

Then there's all the other better debuff values.

So you get all that extra goodness on defenders while losing only 7.5% damage on large teams and actually outdamaging them on small teams. Scourge makes it tough tell exactly by how much, but I've never thought Scourge helped all that much except against bosses and up.

Prior to the buff to defs I had last played a guntoting lvl 50 TA def and a guntoting lvl50 TA cor doing same missions and would of said, for soloing the corr was better but teaming its gonna be a def but then the def got buffed. Despite doing the same missions there was always something different and so my thoughts were subjective. So I would toss a coin now.

I think some points need to be made in favor of Corruptors to debunk the claim that a Trick Arrow Defender will have comparable damage with better debuffs.

(1) The Corruptor will have better damage against mobs that have not been debuffed. This is especially relevant when using AOEs. Few debuffs can be used so efficiently that no stragglers have managed to avoid them.

(2) The Corruptor will get access to his high damaging attacks (apart from Oil Slick) earlier because they are in his primary power set. This loses relevance after level 40 or so (except when exemped of course), but that's still 40 levels of advantage.

(3) Corruptors share the 500% damage cap of Blasters and Scrappers, putting them 100% ahead of their Defender brethren. This means in situations where damage buffs are approaching the cap (such as when someone uses Fulcrum Shift), Corruptors will come out way ahead.

(4) Scourge actually does make quite a difference, especially if you're using AOEs in a large team setting. It's a rare moment that I throw out an AOE and don't see the word Scourge appear a few times unless the fight JUST started.

(5) This isn't relevant if you are using a primary shared by Corruptors and Defenders (such as Archery), but it is worth noting that the Fire Blast primary is very high damage and only available to Corruptors.


This isn't to make a case that Corruptor > Defender. I've played and enjoyed both, and neither are gimped by any means. This is to make the relatively common sense case that you should roll a Corruptor if you want more focus on damage and a Defender if you want more focus on debuffs and support. As far as which is better on a team, once again that depends on whether your team is more lacking in damage or support, though both bring some of each.

As far as the general claim that resistance debuffs can make damage dealers irrelevant in general, ask yourself this; which team would move faster through a mission, 8 defenders, or 4 defenders and 4 blasters? Resistance debuffs only go so far, and the high damage of other ATs is half of where the usefulness of said debuffs comes from.

In the end it simply comes down to a general agument of Corruptors vs. Defenders. Both do damage and can do support in the forms of heals, debuffs and buffs (Just debuffs in the case of TA). Cors have better damage, and is a better solo, Def have better support abilities and are better on teams.

In the end I guess what matters is what style of toon are you going to play. Are you going to be mostly solo or mostly teamed?

I've been wanting to ask this question for a while.

How does Scourge work in Rain of Arrow? I know how it works with dot in Dark Blast. The game only checks for Scourge on the initial hit and not for every dot.

But for Rain of Arrow, the game checks 3 DoT separately so does it mean each hit has a chance to Scourge? If so, Rain of Arrow should be quite good on Corruptor? Basically, does RoA work the same way as Ignite in Assault Rifle?

I think RoA works like Ignite since you cast a "pet" and the game checks for Scourge for each hit but I don't have RoA to confirm.