Making a Defender that can do 'great things'.
By
5th_Elemental,
Posted on: 2011-07-13 22:53 in Defenders
I have a FF/Ice I enjoy very much running with. With IO damage bonuses, Assault, Muscular Alpha, Reactive Interface, and Cryonic Judgment, I feel like I'm running a blaster with status protection. I also picked up the Destiny power Rebirth +Regen, so now I have a heal on top of status protection and soft capped defense. The AoE attacks in Ice actually do Blaster level damage. If you take Power Mastery, you can get Build up to put the icing on the cake with all of your other +dmg powers.
Many people will put down Force Fields as a one trick pony, not being a debuff set. It's very easy to build your character to be able to put your team at the soft cap. Dispersion Bubble provides actual status protection, which is huge for non melee teammates. You get Repulsion Bomb, which besides an attack, it's also a knockdown/stun power. Much more to the set, but I'm not in the mood to write a guide.
Just another set to think about if you just want to click and go, and not spend half the fight debuffing/healing.
Very well said Hatred666. I would add that Forcefields insulation shield also has endurance drain protection which is beneficial in addition to the other defense numbers of that power.
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
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It's worthwhile to note, that in my experience, the biggest downside to any Def soloing is mez. Sure, you can wait till lvl 50 and 5-15 iTrials to get Destiny to get some mez protection (none of the Epic or Patron sets offer Defenders any mez resistance last I checked), but Traps, Sonic, and Force Field all off a defender mez protection at a fairly early level...|
Originally Posted by Psylenz
Very well said Hatred666. I would add that Forcefields insulation shield also has endurance drain protection which is beneficial in addition to the other defense numbers of that power.
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FF has a lot to offer, especially to a team, but not a ton of offensive help. Sonic has a nice chunk of -res, even more on a team. Traps, though, has a ton of tools on offense for cracking the toughest of opponents, but it can be hard to leverage your powers as effectively on a fast moving team.
If you can handle relying on Break Frees and no bad luck incidents to avoid mezs, then Cold and Rad will also be big time heavy hitters vs AVs/GMs... Dark and Storm not far behind them. Hmm. Now that I think on it, maybe move Dark up to with Cold and Rad.
Nice to see that the thread is still going, even though faintly (haven't checked the forums for a day or so).
Anyways, I've added a bunch of Defenders, and possibly corruptors, to my list of alts to-do.
I'm really considering giving both Force Fields and Cold Domination a try, especially since I didn't have a remarkable experience with either (FF on a MM is /yawn and Cold is a late bloomer, as it appears).
On the other hand, I've begun looking at a few builds that I've made for my Rad/Sonic and, quite frankly, I have no idea what to aim for. Besides +recharge, of course. That one's a no-brainer 
I've found my debuffs to be quite reliable, but can they really be considered real mitigation? Say, the -To-hit from Radiation Infection is pretty high, should I even bother trying to increase my defenses?
As far as powers go, the only one that I can't seem to find myself taking is Shockwave from /Sonic. Even Chocking Cloud, Screech and Siren's Song have had their moment of glory, despite looking rather weak at first glance or simply lacking any sort of combination (Nothing to stack Screech with besides itself is making me rethink this one).
I've read a few guides about both Rad/ and /Sonic, but I have yet to be convinced (mostly on those 3), so I just felt like throwing this out here
In any case, the responses are inspiring, to say the least. Thanks.
I'm also to see a few examples of the super-duper Rad/Sonic - searches yield few results =(
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Well iirc they all had high recharge, capped ranged def and used hover blasting. Nothing else that stands out comes to mind, don't remember the epic but I think they all used Power for PBU and Conserve Power. |
Originally Posted by Voodoods
I'm also to see a few examples of the super-duper Rad/Sonic - searches yield few results =(
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Oh most of them used screech for the longer lasting -res than the other blasts but aside from that there's nothing more I can think of.
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Radiation infection on its own is good mitigation, it'll comfortably see you through 1-50. But if you have cash to burn, you can build for high res/def in addition to rech because:|
Originally Posted by Narkor
I've found my debuffs to be quite reliable, but can they really be considered real mitigation? Say, the -To-hit from Radiation Infection is pretty high, should I even bother trying to increase my defenses?
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- Rad infection does not floor the ToHit of Trial enemies (They have 64 base, fully slotted Defender RI is about -50). RI is also reduced by the purple patch.
- Defense helps when fighting enemies e.g. AVs which resist debuffs heavily, or when fighting above the target cap.
- Defense makes you more mobile. You don't have to worry so much about keeping everything inside the RI area of effect, which I think is significant for defenders, who have less ways to make enemies stay put. Sometimes there are situations where you take fire without having the time to lay down debuffs e.g. speed TFs, moving through the base in Lambda looting phase.
- Defense means you don't die instantly if detoggled (IO defense does not suppress when mezzed)
RI also has a hideously long animation.
My own Rad/Sonic has 45 ranged defense, enough recharge for perma-hasten, and the musculature alpha. It's fun dropping EF on a huge mob of warworks and watching judgement hit for 700.
Yeah, I know you said you're thinking of rolling a Traps corruptor ...
But I'll throw out that my Traps / Dark can zzzzzz her way through AVs, ambush farms, pylons, etc..
Just to throw something out ... if you're willing to proc-out Traps, you can milk a HUGE pile of damage from the traps themselves.