Rad Blast w/mez protection? Best option?

I have a FF/Dark defender and have tanked AVs... FF is incredibly survivable, and with PB (soul mastery) gets even more insane! Plus, if you team a lot (and not an average-speed team that traps players can keep up with or lead, but a real decent fast-moving, 20 min. ITF style team) you give massive defense to your team!

While, in my experience, dark layered nicely with FF, /rad would be a powerful option, too - an AoE monster. My FF/dark has enough recharge to constantly spam the two cones, and thus has a fun playstyle for me, I think /rad could be similar (just jumping INTO a crowd, instead of lining up with it).

Plus, since you're in the middle of a mob, going Soul Mastery will give you not only the desirable power boost, but also Soul Drain (which is pure lovin' for a pbaoe-centric toon right there).

I hated bubbles forever, not having played one, then I rolled this FF/dark a year or so ago... WOW, was I a fool. Don't under-estimate FF, like one poster said, you only need a few powers from it, and can quickly and easily branch into the power pools.

I only took PFF (which I rarely ever use, just as a place for a LoTG), Deflection Shield, Insulation Shield, and Dispersion Bubble. That's it. Two team-shield powers and your big bubble. 3 powers, mainly. Though PFF is great for situational things.

So I have 3-slotted shields, and 5-slotted Dispersion. That is an investment of 8 slots on top of the default slot for the FF powers. Leaves A LOT open. Maneuvers, Weave, etc. ...and Defenders get higher stats for all of those, which makes soft-capping defense easier.

Finally, while soloing, my Defender hits like a TRUCK. It's all DoT, but I can stack several DoTs to make a sea of numbers above a the mobs... Vigilance is actually pretty nice.

Like you, I would do a Dark/FF (or Rad/FF) Corrupter in a heartbeat, just to get that scourge... even taking the slight hit to defense base numbers.

Good luck with whatever you decide to roll!

Since I've been playing a Force Field/Sonic defender lately, I thought about some additional issues with pairing FF with Radiation Blast. (BTW: I am loving Force Fields, nothing I'm saying here should indicate that I'm disparaging the set. It's fantastic with my ranged blast set.)

Given that you want to be in the midst of mobs and using your PBAoE and Targeted AoE's "with impunity", I think that Force Fields might not be the best match for you, at least if you want to get the most out of your primary. The one part of FF that really gives you what you want is Dispersion Bubble, and does exactly what you want. However, FF provides Dispersion Bubble, two ally-only shields, a cage power, a "safe haven" power to recover from combat, an AoE attack, and 3 knockback/repel powers.

Dispersion Bubble and the AoE attack would work very well for what you want to do (mez protection and another AoE that can be used up close), and Personal Force Field lets you heal and recover if things go bad.

However, the three crowd control powers you get would actually work counter to keeping the baddies close and taking damage from you. These powers are really helpful in ensuring your survival on a FF defender, especially solo, but would inhibit your damage-dealing abilities from Irradiate and Neutron Bomb (though less for the latter).

This could mean 2 things: Either you have more room for pool powers (yay!), or you have flexibility in the use of your powers depending on your current health.

However, as FF doesn't offer many tools for mitigation beyond defense (which is not huge without additional pool powers and set bonuses) and knockback, it might not be easy to accomplish your goal (PBAoE damage with safety) with this set.

(edit: See _r0y_'s comments above for a different experience. I would note that _r0y_'s use of Dark Blast actually offers a fair amount of mitigation to add to the shield powers that he took. Dark Blast has the wonderful wonderful to hit debuff, which stacks with the defenses from FF's shields, but also has tools such as Tenebrous Tentacles (immobilize to keep enemies out of melee range with you) and Dark Pit (nice group minion stun) to help cut down your incoming damage. Finally, Dark Blast has a self-heal in the third blast that helps you deal with the damage that does get through. Radiation Blast's secondary effect doesn't provide mitigation, and your only mez (Cosmic Burst) is a single target.)

Storm Summoning also has a similar problem with Hurricane (and Gale, if you were to use it). Hurricane offers wonderful survival tools, but inhibits your PBAoE damage dealing.

Traps, Dark, Cold, Poison, and Time don't have useful/necessary powers that make you choose tradeoffs between survivability and PBAoE damage. Force Fields and Storm do require you to make those tradeoffs.

Lots of options. But quite a few of them are not palatable to me. For one thing, I hate Blasters. Feel free to interpret that as I suck with blasters or that I am too lazy.

As for traps, it is a set I really enjoy, but I have found that I dont like mixing it with blasts. I love it on Masterminds.

I could always go with Storm or Dark and work towards defense, but I already have a Storm/Rad defender who is level 49 (using generic IOs). I should probably tweak him out instead of making a rad/storm corruptor.

Also, I love Storm and Dark and have already done plenty. I have Dark/Elec and Dark/Ice defenders at 50. I have Thugs/Dark at 50. I have a Fire/Dark corruptor at 37. And Stormies? Forget about it. Storm is my fave set in the game! I have every permutation of storm controller at 50 except elec, plus I have 3 storm defenders at 50 (energy, psy, sonic) and just made a fire/storm corruptor. So I just want to avoid getting in a rut.

I dont really enjoy kin or rad or Trick Arrow or thermal or traps much on blast sets. I generally dont enjoy cold. Poison is a maybe I suppose. But I really want mez protection, softcapping, or both.

I bet rad/poison is interesting, despite not offering what I am looking for. I wonder how poison does at soft capping?

Hmm.

Thanks for all the replies btw. Much obliged!

Lewis

tl;dr: Poison is certainly buildable to soft-cap against 3 positions and has the added bonus of to hit debuffs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnicyclePeon Poison is a maybe I suppose. But I really want mez protection, softcapping, or both. I bet rad/poison is interesting, despite not offering what I am looking for. I wonder how poison does at soft capping?

Poison offers no direct defense itself, of course, but does offer a nearly functional equivalent: to hit debuffs. It provides these in two powers: Weaken and Venomous Gas. Weaken requires a hit check but is ranged, while Venomous Gas requires no hit check and is a PBAoE. You can count the impact of these two powers as subtracting from the needed level of defense for softcapping. (Sorta, because if you miss with Weaken, no benefit, and if the enemy is outside the range of Venomous Gas, no benefit.)

However, I'm within a sliver of softcapping my Rad/Kin Corruptor to S/L, and I'm not far from it on Energy, and I'm not done. Kin offers no powers helpful in providing defense or -to hit, so I built my defenses out of Weave, Combat Jumping, Scorpion Shield, and set bonuses (including two sets of Kinetic Combats). (I'm recreating this out of memory, I'm not at home to look at his build right now.) And that is with Corruptor numbers on those powers, just as you would face with a Rad/Poison.

I played with mids and a Rad/Pois build and, with the gladiator global def, I hit 44.5% or so to smashing, ranged, and aoe. Kinda sick. And thats not counting the point blank hit debuff cloud. Is that thing enhancable? Anyway, the downside was that I only had 32% or so global recharge, and no hasten. But hey.

Rad/Anything with the 120 second Clarion incarnate power?

Seriously. I know people say that FF is underperforming and blah blah blah blah...random numbers...blah...more numbers...blah blah blah etc.

I say! FF is awesome! Take the 2 group shields. Personal FF, Dispursion Bubble, and Force Bubble!

Thats it. Thats all you need. Repulsion Bomb is...lacking but still can be usefull, although I don't use it on my Gav/FF controller

But, then with all that extra slotting slot thingies and more options for pool powers which can add to your defense, you could have something quite survivable, and when you turtle up...you really turtle up.

I have seen where my FF/Grav is the last woman standing. And I am the only one able to get to a safe zone to tp my troops.

Take Aid Self and boom...your are an unhittable self reliant machine. Others may scoff at you for taking something that might not be as beneficial or offer a world of options or versality, but you are choosing FF for sheer PERSONAL defense...and that is what it will do.