Favorite support set to team with?

As someone with more than 300 levels of Rad, I've got to go with that first. It offers a little bit of everything and it's well understood by everyone at this point. Even in the (sigh) rare cases when it's not, there's always the AoE heal and resurrection powers that match up with what idiots think support toons should be doing.

I'm going to place Cold second. Most of the Colds I've teamed with haven't taken, or were not diligent about applying the shields. I know it's a great set and I wish more people played it.

I'd put Kinetics third. Kins don't bring as much to the table for squishies, but melee-types deservedly love them. +Recharge, +EndRec and +Dam are the key ingredients in a team that can steamroller through everything, and Kinetics brings all of those things.

Dark is next. Debilitating debuffs, huge heal. It probably deserves to be higher on the list, but most of the time when I see Dark these days, it's in its lesser MM form.

My first 50 was an Empath and I put about 1500 hours into that toon, but Empathy, Pain and Thermal are very "meh" sets to me, in part because of the healer association and in part because they just don't bring as much to the table as those first four. Thermal is the best of the bunch.

TA players are usually awesome, experienced folks who were looking for something different. That said, on a team their contribution sometimes gets lost. I feel like TA should've been a control set instead of debuff.

I'm also kind of ambivalent about Traps. I just don't see it doing as much. I liked it better when puking was more reliable.

FF and Sonic absolutely have their place. FF is an absolute game changer for a team in most scenarios. Everyone loves it. But it's boring as all hell to play. Sonic is the opposite: the bubbles AREN'T a game changer, even in spite of how good they are. The -res powers make up for it, but in general I think Sonic's contribution to a functional team is pretty small. Stuff dies a little slower and people live a little longer. Emphasis on "a little." I'd rather have almost anything else.

Storm just needs help. I have about 70 levels of Storm and I still don't like it. At least eight out of 10 people who are playing it probably shouldn't be.

Depends on the situation. For general content, probably Forcefield. For harder stuff, Cold. After those two, Empathy (an empath who uses Fortitude on more than one person and is on the ball with Clear Mind) and Traps are roughly tied, then everything else in a big heap.

A good Kin. I can count the number I've run into over the years on one hand.

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Originally Posted by Test_Rat Well played traps is the best debuff set in the game. Stacked acid mortor -res Stacked seekers -dam and - to hit Poison trap effectively shuts down regen, slows rech, holds, AND forces vomit interrupt (and can be stacked!!!!) Caltrops to protect squishes from melee And they provide status protection AND defense? It always makes me die a bit inside when people pass up a traps for a rad because traps is better.

This guy knows what's up.

It really depends on which character I'm playing. My Warshade always loves getting bubbled though. I'm not too fussy as to what flavour of bubbles I get, although graphically the Ice ones are the ugliest ones IMO.

My Plant/Empath likes another Empath so I can skive off and not be expected to keep everyone alive

Debuff sets I'd always go with Dark Miasma, it's my favourite to play and my favourite to have on the team.

Sonic/Kin Corruptor or Kin/Sonic Defender

They work best with how I construct characters.

Cold is also a great support powerset, but I typically have my defenses and resistances pushed already. The debuffs are great in that set, of course. In the end, the boost from a Kin and the added -Res from sonic are more helpful to me.

I am a giant wheel of damage.

I am self sufficient.

Support makes me better.

ANY support.

I don't have a favorite. I really don't. I'm like one of those natives from an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon. It all looks like magic to me and is equally inpressive. I don't know what or how they do it. I don't pay attention. It's not my job. I start under the assumption that no one is helping me and so ANY extra I get is super awesome.

I would say on average, my favorite support teammate is VEAT.

1. Their leaderships benefit me so I don't need to rely on them to cast shields or heal you. I just need to stay within their leaderships.

2. They can handle aggro pretty well on their own so I don't need to babysit.

3. If I am playing a squishy without mez protection, the high team defense from VEATs allow me to avoid a lot of mez attacks.


There are some situations where their extra defense don't bring as much to the table like if I already have soft-capped defense or the team needs more resistance and -regen debuffs. Basically, I love inviting any VEAT (with leaderships) to the team.

I currently have lots of love for Cold. Rad is probably my second choice.

Any player that is competent with his support powersets can make a bigger difference for his/her team, than the powerset played poorly. We've all seen examples of this (Emps in particular), but for myself, I just struggle PLAYING a Kinetics. To the point I deleted my level 50 ill/kin (way, WAY before things like IOs and server transfers became available).

Having said that, if we talk about the best of the best of the best...I'd put my money on Thermal. Several decent buffs, two decent heals, a rez ally, and a couple decent debuffs. Has it all, and lots of it. Dark Miasma would rank 2nd with a minor buff (shadowfall), a single heal, a mass rez, and decent debuffs. Radiation Emission has a single buff, a single heal, a rez, and excellent debuffs. Cold has several buffs and excellent debuffs by comparison. Empathy lacks debuffs. Etc etc etc. I am only familiar with blueside support powersets, so it's possible there is something redside that is on par given my criteria (Pain?).

My rationale is simple: on a PuG, things can go South quickly, so the lack of healing and/or rezing can be more problematic than the lack of debuffs. If we can't survive long enough to get TO the AV, it doesn't really matter if we have the tools to take down the AV.

[begin rant] Which is my single biggest pet peeve with the LGTF: even the weakened Hamidon repeatedly manages to wipe teams, seemingly irregardless of support on said team. Yes, I know, people do MoLGTFs all the time, I have too, it's still a pain in the sensory perceptor. I know people that don't do the TF just because of that mission. [end rant]

tl;dr: like any other form of mitigation, the best sets are the ones with more than one kind built in.

An empath who understands their powers, and a good /sonic are two favorites of mine.

Many empaths just don't 'get' that they're good for more than just healing, or heal+clear mind. I LOVE when only those without mez protection sport the clear mind, the blaster gets fortitude not the tank, and the character with the best powers on a long recharge or player with worst endurance issues gets the adrenalin boost.

Sonic is kind of different in that it's so very simple, but so undervalued. Defense is powerful, but in a game with more bad luck strings than some would admit, resists have their own value; especially when it's far more likely to have a team member with defense to stack with. Resists and defense together? golden. Plus I love the streamrolling that happens with all the -res. The funky thing with sonic is that it doesn't announce it's self. Defense gets its 'deflected!,' and a mob unloading on you with none hitting. "wow!" team members say, these bubbles are awesome! When you magically do 30% more damage, and a mob cuts you to half health, rather than death? Well, you just must be awesome enough to dish damage and take it. It really is a 'quietly' awesome set. (Yes, sonic is 'quietly awesome. ha. ha. Irony.)

To play, or play with?

To play... well, really any of my "support" toons. Son/Son, Cold/Dark, Fire/Rad, Ill/Kin, Ice/Storm, Earth/TA all provide ridiculous amounts of buff/debuffs. If the measuring stick is how fast the end AV goes down, I'd prolly give a nod to my Cold 'fender, followed closely by my Fire/Rad, then Son/Son.

To play with? If I'm melee, give me a Soldier. If I'm ranged, give me a tank.

BTW, nice to see respect for Sonics on this thread, but no love for Liquefy? It's a damn "I Win" button!

For me it depends on the type of team that I'm on what the "favorite" is; it also depends heavily on player competence.

Assuming a competent player behind the controls and a well-rounded build:

For high-speed spawn annihilation while leaving a vapor trail: Kinetics, followed by Cold. Stacked Fulcrum Shift + Speed Boost and if mobs get off more than an alpha, they're AVs.

For mass carnage as hoards of ambushes swarm your location: Traps, followed by Cold. The problems with traps are longish animations and a lack of mobility. Ambushes coming at you? They just disappear without a trace...

For AV-melting goodness: Cold OR Traps, depending on the AV's mobility and the likelihood that they're going to get hit by an AoE while placing things. Most of the time... Cold.

For general play on a PuG that's running normal missions: see the first one, above. Very rare are the missions that are so spectacular I'd want to prolong them.

Why does Cold show up so much? Well, for starters, I tend to like debuffs a bit more than buffs, and Cold is more than just Sleet: Benumb and Heat Loss give it spike debuffing that only Traps can compare to, and Traps requires more setup time to do it. Sure, Cold lacks a heal or rez - it's not alone in that, either - and yes, there is a place for healing in the game. But when you're rarely ever being hit due to shields, Heat Loss is keeping your endurance full, and Sleet is causing mobs to flop around while their hit points melt away into oblivion, you don't need all that many heals.

Now for someone who doesn't do much or has questionable competence but at least stays with the team: Crab Spider who actually took the Tactical Training toggles, FF, Traps, or Sonic Resonance. Then they can just stand nearby and still be helping.

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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

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Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

I should say that, for Rikti raids, if I get out there and don't see at least 2 or 3 big bubbles of some kind, I start debating whether it's worth sticking around. Traps probably makes out the best there because it can't be slept-toggled (I don't think). But any of the 3 big bubble sets is critical to me here. Just about every epic wipe I've been witness to occurred in conjunction with inadequate mezz shields.

If the respec trial was hard, Force Field would be my number one there, just because they can soft cap the generator. ;D But wow is Force Bubble ever the power with the biggest gap between how awesomely overpowered its Tier 9 sounds versus what it turns out to do for you. It's not hard to imagine a game where Force Bubble would be incredible, but in the context of this one it fails to deliver.

Traps.

Here's a weird thing: I've done a bunch of ITFs over the years with various toons, including a lulzy expensive fire / fire dom, spines / WP scrapper, and different support toons (Dark, FF, and Kin), and my fastest times have all been with my Dark / Traps defender. I've done kill alls with my Traps / Dark that were faster than "speed" ITFs on my dom.

I've been on some crazy bad teams that were simply not helped by my Kins or only marginally helped by my dom.

But I've never, ever been on a failed TF with my trapper.

I've never had a team dissolve because a mish was too hard with my trapper.

I think most players simply don't get what Traps does.