/Pain vs. /Thermal

Looking at rolling a DP/Pain or a DP/thermal. In reading both sets powers, I like the fact that both do a little bit of healing and provide buffs in different forms. My questions are these:

For team play, which is "better" overall:

Which has more longevity (meaning good from lvl 1 to 50 and beyond)?

I avoid solo'ing but sometimes the teams are not there, which one can help more?:

I appreciate your input on this matter.

Thermal probably has more longevity. Pain has more healing power but Thermal offers more +resistance and better debuffing.

Unfortunately, neither are very good at soloing. Both only have the self heal until 35 that really helps soloing, and even then their AoE debuffs recharge slowly.

If you want something that'll be strong solo and teamed, I'd recommend looking at Dark or Rad. Traps too, but its a little more complex.

I have played both of these, and it really depends utlimatly what your looking for in the sets.

First and most important question... Do you like buffing people?
If your answer is no, Toss Thermal out of the window. It has 2 shields you need to constantly be rebuffing people with and forge.

Thermal might beat out Pain on raw Resistance bonus, but thiers a lot ot be said for hitting 1 Button and buffing everyone around you with 17%-18% res vs having to put 2 shields on each person and maybe pets etc. World of Pain also comes packing a To Hit Boost.

Heal wise, thier basicly equal (though Pain does have a bigger extra heal).

Pain also packs a healing aura, not to be underestimated.

Debuffing... Thermal beats out pain, as Pain has only 1 debuff, thats hard to perma due to recharge.

But pains back Pain Bringer buff which can be perma, turning your target into a mini-reg scrapper with a damage boost.

Over all I think Pain is the stronger set. Thermals not crap, I just enjoyed Pain more. It was a lot more fire and forget, were as Thermal is very active.

Now for Solo on a corruptor.. definitely /Dark. Its got basicly everything.. debuffs, buffs, heals, control. Dark Doesn't heals/Buff as well as Pain or Thermal. But dark also beats both them out for Debuffs and Control. Dark is very Jack of All trade, and works great with any primary.

Between thermal and pain....pain is mostly healing and curing....its a very reactive set...it does have a toggle heal power but the amount it heals isnt that great....

While thermal offers resisatnce shields and some healing and curing.....it also has some nice debuffs as others have mentioned.

As for which one is more solo-able between those two....that would be thermal.

You might think pain due to the toggle heal...but....in actuality with thermal you can enhance the shields and other powers to give you more protection...like for example you can slot steadfast in the shields to give you knock back protection....cant do that with pain.

In pain granted you can put the special heal enhancers in the differing powers....but...most of those enhancers are incorrect in their description and give far less bonus for 60 seconds only and you can only use 1 of those.

I actualy am enjoying a Sonic Blast/Thermal Corruptor right now that i made. Only thing that i can think of that would even her out more would be if she had more summonable pets she could use. But getting those temp powers is a bit difficult.

Between DP/Pain and DP/Thermal only.... I'd go /Pain, no question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silas Unfortunately, neither are very good at soloing. Both only have the self heal until 35 that really helps soloing

True for /Thermal, it doesn't get anything you can use solo until level 35 (aside from the heal Pbaoe that is). /Pain gets Soothing Aura at 20 and World of Pain at 28, both of which can help soloing (and teaming) significantly. Pain also has a few self +dmg and +rech and +recovery buffs as a side effect of healing/rezzing teammates, which works well with DP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silas If you want something that'll be strong solo and teamed, I'd recommend looking at Dark or Rad. Traps too, but its a little more complex.

^^This I can agree with.

Thermal will be changed in the next issue to have AoE shield buffing, so at least that aspect of it is going by the wayside.

Yeah just saw that myself, that makes this discussion a tricker now.

Thermal has better resists, and now your only to clicks away from applying that better resist to everyone around you. One of the selling points of Pains World of Pain. Though at least world of pain still has a Dmg and To hit boost in its favor.

I don't think it's trickier. With this upcoming change to buffs, I'm having a hard time seeing Pain Dom's advantage over Thermal. Heck I'm having a hard time seeing PD even competing with Thermal.

What PD offers Thermal doesn't now:
1. A large ally heal that can get you killed
2. A very nice buff you can use on 1 teammate max.

Thermal can counter #2 with Forge, offsetting the +reg, +rec by being able to buff more teammates, for a slightly smaller +Dmg buff.

With much better resists, similar heals, better debuffs and arguably better offensive buffs (since Forge can be used on 6 teammates), it just seems so one-sided now.

The buff change is good, no doubt, but I'm bummed that I choose PD for my current leveling toon over Thermal because I didn't want to do the double shielding ever 4 minutes this time around.

Isn't Anguishing Cry from Pain the only -res debuff in the game labeled as Psionic damage? Shouldn't that be very effective against certain AV's?

Pain still wins in number of clicks.

1 Click... Buff entire team, pets, minions etc up to 255 targets (effects the Corruptor as well)
1 click... Perma Pain Bringer on 1 target


vs

2 Clicks... buff entire team blah blah (cannot effect the corruptor)
6 Clicks... Forge on 6 tagets (very dependent on recharge)

Also should make note, World of Pain comes packing a 7.5% To Hit buff and a 12% Damage Buff.

Pains Big second heal isn 't that suicidal if your not taking damage. If you stay off the aggro grind a bit, its a very nice heal to use.

I would also point out that Pain has Suppress Pain aura Toggle. ( Pulseing Heal tics).

Not going to lie, I liked to see some tweeks to Pain in like of the new Shield change. But its still not a cut and dry Thermal over Pain.

Depends a lot on what your doing with it.

Me... I hate clicking... Pain is the way to go.

Just a quick reminder:

/Pain tier 9 is Painbringer, which is awesome on a Tank or Brute but useless when you solo.

/Thermal tier 8 and 9 are debuffs that will benefit your team and you when you solo.

My focus while answering was soloing, since the OP said he wanted to take that into account.

Painbringer is useless if you are a CORRUPTOR soloing. This is not the MM forum. I gave examples, Brute and Tanker, I didn't say they were the ONLY ones. I didn't say /Thermal was better than /Pain. I just reminded how the last tier powers worked when soloing. Both power sets have their merits. I have tried both Corruptors and MMs with both sets.

I see a lot of ties in your comparison table, which I disagree. Some powers even have buff/debuff components that take other tiers into account, it is not as simple as pairing some powers. Team size also matters, as well as positioning, damage type, enemies, etc, which were not taken into account when you covered teams.



It really depends on your play style since:

- Both have buffs that are "click and forget" but /Thermal also has Forge which you should apply everytime it has recharged. And as already said above, the Shields will become PBAoE.

- Both have an AoE and a ST heals, but /Pain has Share Pain, which is a big heal and a self damage buff.

- Both have an Ally Status Res, but /Pain also offers minor +Recharge and +Perception with Enforced Morale. So it is not a tie with Thaw, which offers Cold resistance, unless you are doing the Winter Event

- Both have an Ally Rez, but Conduit of Pain also buffs you. Again, not a tie with Power of the Phoenix.

- Regarding damage mitigation for your team, /Thermal has Shields and Heat Exaustion while /Pain offers Soothing Aura and World of Pain. Soothing Aura heals ~8% every 4 secs, roughly 2%/sec of your HP, if people are near you. /Thermal shields don't protect against Psi or Toxic, they can't be applied on yourself, but your team will have this benefit even far away from you. World of Pain offers ~18% Res (if perma), even for Toxic and Psi. HE debuffs you opponents damage by 50% before debuff resistances, such as from AVs, are applied. It depends which enemy type you are fighting and the damage type they deal.

- Painbringer is very different from Heat Exhaustion. First, you can use the later while soloing. Second, if on a team, everyone can benefit from a debuff instead of a single-target buff. Couple the -50% DMG with Chemical Ammo and you will debuff a lot of a single target's damage. We could take World of Pain into comparison which gives Res (All). Against an EB, HE wins. Against an AV, don't forget they have debuff resistances, so it's not simple, it depends on which one you are fighting against.

- In terms of damage buffs, World of Pain offers +ToHit and +DMG, which Forge also offers. /Pain has lower numbers for everyone, /Thermal has bigger numbers to some. Anguishing Cry and Melt Armor must also be taken into account since they provide -Res and -Def, but you have to work for them to be perma. Since Anguishing Cry offers more -Def and is applied to all enemies instead of just one, it is better alone. But the answer to which power set is better depends on Recharge Bonus and team size, as /Thermal can supress the difference provided by Anguishing Cry.



So the questions I would make are:

- Do you prefer healing more with Share Pain or paying attention to Forge's recharge time?

- Do you mind that Painbringer is a great ST buff that many will praise you for but you won't use when soloing?

- Do you prefer to heal passively those around you or apply shields? And not forgetting that the heals apply to you and the shields don't, and the shields affect your team even when they are not close to you.

- Do you prefer heavy debuffs from /Thermal or heavy buffs from /Pain?

- Which do you prefer while soloing? Damage mitigation from /Pain or debuffs from /Thermal?

I recommend that you level both sets to level 20 and see for yourself. By then, you will have heals, shields and aura. You can find lots of teams on Praetoria to help you.