Staying Alive

Sorry,to disappoint you. This has nothing to do with Saturday Night Fever. *watches half the readers vanish*

I'm an Electric / Empathy Defender and one of the trickiest aspects of play so far is merely being able to live long enough to do my job properly. As you all know, Empathy is perhaps one of the strongest healers in the game. The downside to this potency, however, is a distinct lack of self defense options.

I would very much be interested in ideas to prolong my lifespan in a team, especially if anyone has experience healing Leagues in Incarnate trials. I realise there are some incarnate powers which will aid with mez resistances, but I have yet to unlock those and will have to endure many more trials before I have enough threads to slot it.

Any hints and tips would be welcomed.

I have an Empathy/Energy Blast Defender. His survival is largely based on three factors:

1) Single target attacks. I don't damage the whole room so I don't aggro the whole room. This option may not work as well for Electric Blast.

2) Positional defense from IO sets on top of normal defensive powers like Maneuvers, Hover, etc. There are lots of cheap (or at least non-purple) IO sets with great defensive bonuses.

3) Stealth IO. Even if you're just minding your own business and healing, that crazed Brute you're trying to keep alive can drag you through a lot of random aggro. Being stealthy makes you a lot less interesting for them to attack.

Have to almost totally agree with 2dolla....

Don't attack huge groups if you can, and if you must, do so after a melee type or really aggro greedy ranged type has opened..

Build for defense, mostly ranged... AOE is also good. Run away when engaged in melee.

Stealth is awesome. Get it,use it... More the better..


Oh.. And get [Clarion] ASAP.

If nobody's supporting you -- and this will be frequent in PuGs since newbie leaders often incorrectly think "emp is all we need" -- blast cautiously. Same as you'd play a blaster with no support on the team. Aim, single target attacks, take down one target at a time, hold and stop recovery with Tesla Cage. This makes enemies a little less likely to target you.

I know, I know, it's suboptimal. You're not putting out nearly as much damage as you could. But that's the sad reality of playing a blasty type without support.

Another way to make enemies a little less likely to target you is to keep Fortitude on as many teammates as you can, especially AoE damage dealers. The more damage they do, the lower a threat you'll be considered by the AI. Recharge buffs and bonuses (i.e. Hasten) are key here, as is practice keeping track of the buffing order.

Distance is also a factor. The AI favors nearer targets over farther.

Additionally, Hover can help you stay within Short Circuit range but out of melee range. You'll still be a high threat target because you're using AoE damage from close range, but at least those sledgehammers or Rikti swords or whatever can't reach you, and they'll have to resort to (usually) weaker ranged attacks.

With support or at incarnate levels, things change. Regen Aura, Healing Aura, and your incarnate abilities will boost your survivability, especially if you have one or two key defense types boosted. Ranged/Energy/Negative defense set bonuses are probably easiest. Scorpion Shield if you feel like it. Once your defense is covered, take advantage and use your blasts to the fullest, Short Circuit and all.

Here's some "easy" Ranged/Energy/Negative defense set bonuses for Emp/Elec. Not necessarily the best in the game, but inexpensive and easy to build around, while you're still amassing wealth and learning the ropes.

Hold: Basilisk's Gaze x2 = 1.25% ranged, 2.5% energy&negative
Travel: Blessing of the Zephyr x2 = 1.25% ranged, 0.625% energy&negative
PBAoE: Eradication x3 = 1.565% ranged, 3.13% energy&negative
Ranged: Thunderstrike x3 = 1.25% ranged, 2.5% energy&negative
Resist: Reactive Armor x3 = 0.625% ranged, 1.25% energy&negative
Blasts: Defender's Bastion x5 = 3.75% ranged, 1.875% energy&negative

Tesla Cage, Inspirations, heavy damage slots, and Stealth are going to be the way to go. Play like a careful blaster pretty much and run and gun enemies if you have to. When on teams hang to the back of the crowd, support and blast away from your melee as much as you can.

All of the above is great advice (hover blasting+ranged defense+stealth will REALLY help). Also (not sure if anybody mentioned it before) don't forget to grab, slot and love your epic resistance shield as soon as you can. The resistance values for defenders are great in those shields and they do make a difference. The epic pools also add some additional control to what you already have (and use, I hope) which can help you even more in shutting down whoever is going after you...

I'm a corrupter, so it is probably a bit diffrent, but I found it quite easy with the APPs to get myself to 40% S/L and stealth IOs helped a lot.

All the previous advice I would pay attention to. There are ways to shed aggro as well. On my defenders, I often 'cross' the battle scene. This gives taunts, aoe attacks, dark/shield/empath/invincible auras a chance to grab the aggro from that pesky guy chasing you. I don't always play or stay in melee, but my support characters stay close and cross the field when necessary.

Without bringing IOs or iPowers into the situation, one question would be: what are you doing to draw agro?

My Emp/Rad blasts and AoEs like he has nothing to do (which he doesn't after all the buffs are down...) and rarely gets in trouble.

What I do is wait a second for Melee and even blasters to get a good hit in before I unleash. Their taunt and damage makes me low on the foes priority list.

And always stay mobile. If I get into trouble I jump over the tanker and let the mob follow me through him. Or anyone with a taunt aura, for that matter. The mob will soon forget all about me.

Also, Tesla Cage.

a useful trick is to never target foes. Target your attacks through a tanker, brute, or scrapper. That way you are attacking someone that is already being attacked so it is less likely they will aggro on you

How I do it (several mentioned by other posters):
1. Attack (particularly with any aggressiveness) when Regen and Recovery Aura are up and running.
2. Mez them first with Tesla Cage (in your case), Cosmic Burst, Screech etc. I do tend to like Electric Mastery for Electric Fence and/or Shocking Bolt for this reason. Footnote that Short Circuit plus PBU can be quite potent and that Power Sink is not in Electric Mastery but Mu Mastery. I'm probably a bit odd but I tend to get more aggressive not less when threatened ... it just gets directed specifically at what's threatening me rather than the team in general.
3. Inspires ... use them, don't hoard them (never full, never empty). But keep an eye on how many Breakfree in particular you have. The more I have the more readily I'm willing to use ... but if it's my last one they'll have to be a clearly mortal threat whereas a bunch sitting there means I want to keep being the mortal threat
4. Accolades - Eye of Magus and Elusive Mind in particular come in handy for giving you defense and resistance to pretty much everything between them.
5. Air Superiority - It either knocks the melee foe down in front of you giving you time to stack your mez of choice(s) or knocks the flier out of the air trying to get at you.
6. Stay mobile to give your self the time and space to mez the pursuit and/or lead them by and thru that teammate with a taunt aura.
7. Seems obvious but sometimes RUN AWAY! really is the best plan. Ideally towards a pre-selected cover or exit.

It's usually down to timing.

You're a controller, you're mean't to control mobs, you should be able to use AoEs, you should be able to attack, mobs should be either controlled by you or someone in the team should have their attention.

The single biggest common mistake is where Controllers are using AoEs on spread mobs. Tankers, Brutes and Scrappers have taunt auras that are in the region of 8 to 10ft radius usually not the 30ft radius needed to have any effect on all the aoe immobilised mobs. All those mobs know is some controller has hit them, that's all they know. The controller is number one on their threat table and that's who they will be out to kill. You need to be number two+ all of the time, able to use any power and still be number two+.

You can fort other players, between 3 and 6 depending on slotting and incarnates and they can afford to get aggro before you mitigate the damage being dealt on them.

AoEs and Conductive Aura. Lets say you are allowing for aggro control, AoEs may be used on the Tanker, Brute or Scrapper purely because there is another target near them. That could be an Electric Controller looking to drain and gain endurance. No point doing that where the damage is high enough to even so much as stack with any single target attacks coming your way and kill you.

Then there is the combat tab. Always worth a read. What had hit you? What does it say about that power in Mids or City of Data. Who was the real target if it was an AoE, what could you of done to not of been in its area and still got what you wanted?

All of the above plus...

SuperSpeed + Stealth IO = Near invisibility plus reduced Threat generation. Also, you are able to move out of meleers' range faster and get to other players who are in need faster.

a couple more thoughts:

6b. Adding to Zombie Man's specific advice and to my (and others) general stay mobile advice, I really like Combat Jumping+Hurdle+SS+stealth IO.
8. Know thy enemy. It helps when deciding which of the rest of the survival tricks will most likely get the results you want (You're alive and they're not) No trying to use SC or PS on Sappers or use knockdown, EF or TC on the Cimeroran after they've done all that screaming (Shout of Command) and that annoying sleep is coming from the Rikti Chief Mentalist hanging out waaay back there, but get up in his face and his sword will come out. Is that an improvement? Maybe if you have 2 orange, a purple and an active Regen Aura but no break free or mez protection right. Nevermind SC+PS and he's standing there looking at you, just looking, thinking how gawd awful heavy his sword is

And oops Power Sink is in both Electricity Mastery and Mu Mastery, not sure where I got the idea it wasn't in Electricity Mastery.