FF/Dark needs some tips

So, brief dirty history. I played the game for about a year a good five years or so back, then quit for a long time (while Villains was still in Beta) and just recently came back about a week ago. Been mostly messing with all of the new Villain and Praetoria stuff, but have also been taking a look at some of the old characters that I made and I'm trying to get back into a couple.

One character I made was an FF/Dark Defender that I remember being fond of at the time. Unfortunately, my mindset was a bit different at the time on how best to contribute to a party, so I had all sorts of screwy power choices. I basically took most of the bubbles, had one attack from my secondary unslotted, and had a bunch of random pool powers. Fitness wasn't inherent at the time either, so I had some stuff from there as well. At the time, I was perfectly content to just float along behind my team applying my bubbles every so often and healing as needed while watching them slaughter everything while wrapped beneath my little protective canopy. Needless to say, I wasn't really contributing much to the party, but I've since learned better.

Anywho, I was considering rerolling her into something else, perhaps a controller of some sort with /FF, or just taking a different secondary, but after looking at the powersets a bit, though I hadn't really thought of it at the time all those years ago (I mostly just went 'DARK LOOKS COOL! WAH!), FF/Dark seems to have a lot of synergy at first glance, what with the +Def from the bubbles with the -ToHit from all of the dark blasts.

Now that I have all of these random respecs from being gone so long, my question is, what powers should I be taking in these sets? Or should I reroll her into FF/*something else more effective? Or is FF even viable anymore? Or viable at "endgame" (if I ever get there)? She's just about to hit level 30, so it wouldn't be too tragic to reroll her, though I'd like to avoid it if I can. Just don't want to gimp myself.

Anyway, what I have going at the moment for my primary is PFF, the two bubble shields, and the dispersion bubble. The other powers really seemed situational at best, since it looks like time spent knocking people around could be better spent blasting with my secondary and lowering their ToHit. So far I've taken every power in Dark Blast except for the snipe.

I'm a little torn with the pool powers. I have Assault and Tactics from Leadership, Hover from Flight, Recall Friend from Teleportation. Was thinking either Medicine or Stealth for the fourth pool. I thought that Hover would be useful, but with my bubbles and leadership, that's already a lot of toggles to have going at once, so not sure if it's worth it. I only took Teleportation for the Recall Friend, though, since I'm still going for a primarily support focused build, but it's usefulness is in question, so I could drop it if it's really not needed. Medicine seems like it would just give me more mitigation tools and stealth seems fairly useful and fits my theme, though it's probably situational as well. I'm not particularly worried about the travel powers, as Ninja/Beast run and the jump pack mostly take care of that.

Anyway, any advice would be helpful. Mostly just trying to make myself a support juggernaut while not relegating myself to buff bot status.

Tl;Dr - Looking for a support heavy FF/Dark build that's not just a buff bot.

Well, for starters, here's my FF/Dark build. It's a little expensive, but I got most everything I wanted together in about a month or so of play, after about a 6-year break. Obviously, the Glad's Armor is the expensive bit, but you can get that with alignment merits. I got a few purple drops here and there, and sold them to buy the LotGs, etc. (Actually, I lied. I still haven't gotten the Shield Wall proc. Maybe someday...)

My basic goal here was: softcap my team to all positions, softcap myself to all positions and psi, then blast as best I can. Obviously, there's a lot of flexibility in the rest of the build. You could easily drop teleport for, like, soul transfer or something. Super jump if you're boring, I guess. I just always liked teleport. :P If you wanted, you could take cardiac paragon, which would let you cap your s/l res (with a Shield Wall), but the damage is so bad that I really wanted every edge I could get, which meant musculature all the way. I like detention field for STFs, and now I like force bubble for BAFs. Neither is necessary, but they're both kinda cute. I hate kb, because I like my aoes (they're all pretty decent, too!), so no force bolt or repulsion field. Dark consumption feels like a lot of slots wasted on some def buffs, but oh well.

Edit: Oh, and as for toggles, I'm running nine regularly (sprint for stealth, dispersion, 3x leadership, weave, tough, dark embrace, and switching between cj and ninja run), and I don't have very serious end problems. Very occasionally, I hit dark embrace to get through a long sequence of fights, and now I can save ageless for that if I want, but I don't find it necessary very often. This is partly why I didn't mind going ageless radial instead of ageless core.

Also, here's a much more expensive build I'll probably respec into sometime (it's kinda close to perma-hasten!), but I'll be sad to lose recall friend. I'm really not sure what to slot into super speed and vengeance, but eh, this works well enough. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...79FE07F91FE67E

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.94
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Francis: Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Force Field
Secondary Power Set: Dark Blast
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Teleportation
Ancillary Pool: Dark Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Deflection Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(3), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(3), DefBuff-I(5)
Level 1: Dark Blast -- Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(39), Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Dev'n-Hold%(39), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Cloud-%Dam(40)
Level 2: Gloom -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(42), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(42), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 4: Personal Force Field -- SW-ResDam/Re TP(A)
Level 6: Insulation Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(7), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(7), DefBuff-I(9)
Level 8: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(9), GftotA-Run+(11), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(11)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), GftotA-Run+(21), GftotA-Def(21)
Level 12: Dispersion Bubble -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(13), GftotA-Run+(13), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(15)
Level 14: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(15), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(17), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(17), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(19), GSFC-Build%(19)
Level 16: Tenebrous Tentacles -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(36), Posi-Dmg/Rng(37), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), Posi-Dam%(37), Cloud-%Dam(40)
Level 18: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Night Fall -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(34), Posi-Dmg/Rng(34), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), Posi-Dam%(36), Cloud-%Dam(36)
Level 22: Tough -- GA-3defTpProc(A), ImpArm-ResDam(23), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(23), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg(27)
Level 24: Weave -- GftotA-Run+(A), GftotA-Def(25), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(25), GftotA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(27)
Level 26: Repulsion Bomb -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(29), Posi-Dmg/Rng(29), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), Posi-Dam%(31), ExStrk-Dam%(31)
Level 28: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 30: Recall Friend -- Zephyr-ResKB(A)
Level 32: Force Bubble -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Teleport -- Range-I(A)
Level 38: Vengeance -- GftotA-Run+(A)
Level 41: Dark Consumption -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(43), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(46), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(46), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46), Sciroc-Dam%(50)
Level 44: Dark Embrace -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ImpArm-ResDam(45), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(45), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 47: Soul Drain -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(48), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(48), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50), Oblit-%Dam(50)
Level 49: Detention Field -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 0: Portal Jockey
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
Level 0: Task Force Commander
Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve
Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon
Level 50: Cryonic Core Final Judgement
Level 50: Reactive Radial Flawless Interface
Level 50: Warworks Core Superior Ally
Level 50: Ageless Radial Epiphany
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(33)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), Efficacy-EndMod(5), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(33), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(33)

Wow, that build went in a completely different direction from what I was thinking of. Just had a couple of questions.

Do the benefits of Combat Jumping outweigh the benefits of Hover? Seemed like I'd rather be in the air than on the ground in some situations, but wasn't sure if Combat Jumping was more effective, since I haven't messed with it much.

How's your endurance on this build? It seems like you have a lot of toggles that would be running pretty much constantly, which doesn't seem to leave a lot of room to do much else. I noticed a lot of EndRx in there. Is it manageable? *Edit* Nevermind, just saw your edit about the toggles.

How effective is the fighting pool? I wasn't really considering it, as I'd kind of relegated myself to being the squishiest person on the team, but if this increases my survivability enough, I might just go with it. Still iffy about the toggles, though.

Are the other secondary blasts not worth getting? I figured I'd get most of them just to stack on a bit of -ToHit, but I'm not certain how large the debuff is. Curious if you didn't feel they were worth it, or if you just figured the Dark APP would be more effective.

How worthwhile are Repulsion Bomb and Force Bubble? Seemed like they would cause more chaos than they were worth.

Anyway, thanks for the quick response. You've given me something to chew on.

Edit: Whoa, sorry for the wall of text!


I've never liked hover 'cause it feels slow to me (though maybe I'm just doing it wrong). And CJ takes less end (and you're absolutely right that end is a bit of a concern). And I can usually kite well enough on the ground if I have to (which I rarely do, thanks to tenebrous tentacles and being softcapped; but victorias can hurt sometimes).


End is not really a huge problem. I'll just paste this in, since I edited it into the first reply late:

Quote:

As for toggles, I'm running nine regularly (sprint for stealth, dispersion, 3x leadership, weave, tough, dark embrace, and switching between cj and ninja run), and I don't have very serious end problems. Very occasionally, I hit dark embrace to get through a long sequence of fights, and now I can save ageless for that if I want, but I don't find it necessary very often. This is partly why I didn't mind going ageless radial instead of ageless core.

I'll add: I only really run low when I have some recharge buffs and I'm spamming the cones. And often, in those circumstances, you're in some big AV fight or something and you can drop some toggles. Sprint, at the very least, can go off. Tactics often doesn't matter much, either, and assault isn't a huge deal. But I almost never even bother to drop those two, because I just don't have many end problems.

A lot of this has to do with all the +recovery set bonuses and procs, though. I was using a t1 cardiac before I finished getting all my IOs (and especially the miracle), and it wasn't until after finished that (except for the Glad's Armor, but that doesn't matter) that I felt comfortable dropping the cardiac and building my musculature. Edit: But with a cardiac, it will absolutely have zero end problems (and you'll max your s/l res!), so you could do that if your recovery ends up too low. I really don't have much endrec in the toggles, so cardiac is huge. I just played without it for a bit, and decided that I could get by well enough that I could afford to get that 32.5% damage buff from musculature.


I took fighting because I wanted to softcap myself with weave, and then realized I could also get some good s/l res with tough and an APP shield. As you say, it's possible to resign yourself to being the squishiest person on the team. But where's the fun in that? Every FF def knows how much the softcap can help the rest of the team. Well, it helps you that much, too! And you get good res to two of the commonest damage types to boot! I'm really not very squishy at all. The low hp still makes things a little dangerous, but I run around with a full tray of greens, and actually, it's always at least three full columns of 50% greens that I just collect from drops, which tells you how rarely I have to use them. This is for TFs and trials mainly; ymmv in other situations.


My thoughts on the rest of dark blast: I don't need a damageless disorient (especially when I have repulsion bomb! more on that later), I really don't need kb (especially with the two cones), I never used blackstar when I had it (because the damage is mediocre and I really hate dropping all nine toggles and really the damage sucks), and I don't need a heal because I have insps. That leaves moonbeam. But outside of a couple of special circumstances on TFs and stuff, a snipe just isn't important for me. It definitely isn't important for normal fights--those go soul drain, repulsion bomb if it's recharged, spam cones and ST blasts on the lt/boss/whatever. And I wouldn't want to move slots to it anyway, because that would detract from my damage with my main blasts.

The tohit debuff isn't all that important most of the time, because you and your team should already be softcapped. But when it does make a difference, it's not hard to get enough stacked up with dark blast, gloom, and a cone or two.


Force bubble is almost entirely useless. I would respec out of it for soul transfer or something, but now it's cute on BAF prisoners (just remember to turn it off afterwards! I forget that a lot of the time), and I don't need a self rez either, so I don't mind keeping it. It's also funny on the ITF computer, because you get to push all the robots away and it looks cool, but it can be a little dangerous there so I only do it when I know we'll be fine and it's funny.

You can also use it to push groups into corners to make aoes more effective, but in my experience (on infinity pugs; maybe other servers are different? But I kinda doubt it), things die too quickly to make cute tricks like that actually a good use of everybody's time.


Repulsion bomb, though, is completely awesome, because it's a foe-targeted kd now, not the old ally-targeted kb. The biggest drawback is its terrible activation time, but that's not quite so big a problem as long as you mostly use it to start fights.


And, of course, all of this is based on how I wanted to play. I'm basically a bad blaster with great survivability (compared to other blasters) who happens to also softcap his entire team (and give them good status res), which seemed to me to be the best contribution I could make to my team with my powersets. The survivability helps me there, too. I have no problem jumping into a spawn alongside a tank/brute/scrapper to hit soul drain on, say, an ITF or a Lambda split or something like that, which means I can get started doing damage that much quicker. And that's important, because my damage (even with reactive!) is pretty bad.


Edit: Oh, one final thought. On trials, I often don't even bother bubbling people. Mostly I do it during downtime, like on a BAF while you're waiting for prisoners to spawn or someone to pull the AV, just to have something to do. There are so many buffs flying around anyway that doing bad damage is, I think, a much bigger help to the league. So then I'm really just a bad blaster, which kinda sucks. Oh well.

Concerning Repulsion Bomb and Force Bubble, I can say that I use both, although Force Bubble less often than Repulsion Bomb.

Repulsion Bomb has gone through a lot of revisions since the beginning of the game, and right now it's just a damage AoE (same power as a secondary blast AoE) that has a decent chance for disorienting the enemy and does knockdown. The only drawback it has, as far as I'm concerned, is that it's somewhat slow animating.

Force Bubble is a situational power. As an area denial tool, it's great, but it draws a lot of aggro. I mainly use it on the BAF trial, it's not stopping the Commandos, but all the minions just run into the bubble wall and stay there. Should also be useful on the Sutter TF with the bomb ghouls.

Also, I'd argue against going the Fighting Pool route. I went for Medicine myself as while you're the squishiest member of the team, you're not that squishy, and Aid Self pretty much heals you right back up. But it's interruptible, so if you're really under fire, use Personal Forcefield to get a moment of peace to heal up. Actually, use Personal Forcefield at any time where you need to move through dangerous places without the time to defeat what's in the way. You're practically invincible with that thing on, except if you get hit with a Sleep.

Just two quick thoughts: I've never felt the need for aid self when I can use insps instead (although someone pointed out in another thread that with sufficient self heals, those insps could all be damage insps, and that might be better overall, I dunno). It's not that there's definitely a right answer here, of course. It's just a trade I'm willing to make--softcap myself at the cost of carrying greens.

Also, sleeps also need to hit you! They don't do that very often when you're softcapped to everything. But yes, PFF is nice for stealthing stuff like Khan and the CoT on the STF if all you have is a stealth proc. For normal stuff, like running through tips, though, being softcapped is enough. (With more stealth, you don't even need PFF, but unfortunately, at level 4 you need to choose between PFF, force bolt, and moonbeam, and PFF is, I think, the best IO mule of the three.)

My opinion is that force bubble and repulsion bomb are BOTH indispensable. With Personal Forcefield, aid self is redundant. You can put a nice IO set for stun in repulsion bomb. Inherent stamina with 2 slots should cover most end needs for FF. Stealth is unnecessary. That's the short of it.

Now, picture this if you will. You are fighting the Director 11 AV in Tin Mage, hover near but barely out of melee range over your tank (in my case it was a Dark Armor tank). Your team is bubbled with FORCE BUBBLE in place with your tanker teammate going toe to toe with the director. The Malta ambushes NEVER got in melee range. Insulation shield neutered the sappers. In my experience, NOT ONE of the bombs placed by invisible minions ever exploded on my defender or the tank. It was a scintillating success for Forcefields and the use of Force Bubble!

Ooh, hadn't thought of using force bubble in TM. I could see it being cute there, too. Oh, and yeah, that's definitely one place where I kinda want hover instead of cj, but that's what jetpacks are for.

Forcefields is not to everyone's taste - neither is empathy.