Ideas for a "buff bot"?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-08-16 06:31 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
If you have plenty of def, I'd think sonic is the really obvious choice. Between the AOE +Resist and mez protection, and the shields, and the debuff/mez breaker as needed, it would seem a pretty great buffbot if def isn't an issue.
Bonus is it'll play about the same as what you're already used to.
Is this for missions, farming, what?
Sonic followers are pretty nice if you have the defense. An Ill/Emp though makes for a great pocket emp. Not only can it keep you alive... forever... it can also bring out great help when needed.
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As long as you pick a set that mainly relies on ally buffs, in keeping with the thread title, shouldn't basically any set work rather easily? My thinking is thus: take the second computer's keyboard and put it to the left of your main keyboard. Bind any buffs or easily-targeted-through-your-primary-hero debuffs or attacks or what have you to the second keyboard's numpad. That's about it, hit them as needed. Your APM will be through the roof and MLG will be in touch with lucrative broadcasting contracts within the week.
I'm a fan of an emp defender with Power Build Up. If your defense is sufficient this may not be so optimal though since PBU+Fort is a big reason to go this route. Of course Adrenaline Boost is the biggest reason.
Here are other buff-bot potentials.
Sonic/ Defender. This has been covered upthread enough. 54ish% resists is mighty fine, as well as the -30 res hula hoop, at least if you're going to be in melee.
Thermal/ Defender. Less resists than Sonic, but 30ish% resists ain't chopped liver. You get Forge for +Dmg, probably not as useful for your kin. Plus a 1-2 heal combo if things go south.
Cold/ Defender. You get the shields, a +max HP buff, stealth + slow/-rch resists (Arctic Fog) and Sleet, which will require a little coordination from a 2nd box.
For a wild card, maybe Nature Affinity. It seems to have some interesting PBAOE effects that should be easy enough to cast. I can't begin to guess how effective it would actually be as a buff bot.
No doubt a Defender would be the best buff bot, but an alternative for best buff+ dmg bot would be a MM. All of the above, except Empathy and Cold are available to MMs, with the lower modifiers, but you do get the extra damage from pets. Just put them on aggressive and, to paraphase Ivan Drago, "when they die, they die". Just resummon when enough pets have died off to slow you down.
Having said all that, given that you say your defense is high enough, I'll echo suggestions for Sonic. I would further suggest Demon/Sonic. Demons because of their slows, resists aura and every now and then, a heal.
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A Time Defender isn't a bad option either so long as you can keep aggro off them. You get Temporal Selection for Damage/Regen/Recharge, Farsight for Defense/ToHit and as long as the buff bot sticks close Time's Juncture to debuff any enemies in melee range.
I've always loved an emp as a buff bot. I tried a therm and a kin as well, but it wasn't anywhere near as good. To maximize therm and kin, you really have to actually play buffer, not just have him on follow. But emp doesn't need that. I would just switch to the emp every ~2 mins, give myself PB'd fort, AB, CM, and then switch back. If AB wasn't recharged for any reason, I'd use the auras instead.
AB is an absolutely huge offensive buff, so even if you don't need any extra defense, you can never have too much offense. Plus you basically have no possible chance of dying at all.
Probably sonic resonance, or if you want something unique, have a Arachnos Widow keep all the toggles maxed out and have her follow you.
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Try a shield/ss tanker.
Grant cover is a potent defense buff, auto footstomp is a knockdown plus added damage, and the footstomp plus aggro aura of a shield tank means you'll never have to worry about keeping aggro.
Plus, it's the ultimate 'set it an forget it' buffbot. So long as you don't outrun it, you literally don't need to switch to it, ever, for it to work.
Hah, I should note that the "second account" is a Freemium account that I don't plan on sinking much money into (I reluctantly spent $5 so i could match up its costumes with my other controllers), so Controllers/MMs/EATs are off-limits!
Time and Kin: good ideas and a nice thematic fit, but a) i'd have to buy Time, and b) those sets are quite "Active". The second account runs in the background while I play normally, and to meaningfully use those sets i'd be doing a LOT of alt+tabbing! Not quite what I'm ready for yet!
Fire: I -could- recolor the effects to make it look like psi-armor... and Forge, Melt Armor and Heat Exhaustion would bring a lot of butt-kicking to the table. The only problem is that these effect are hardly "fire and forget" and would require me to tab out and recast more than once a minute =/ Ice is basically the same issue, though visually speaking, "PSIce" seems like it'd be harder to pull of thematically than "PfSIre"
Empathy: The only problem I really have with Emp is that if I'm on a team, I'd feel obligated to share the love and spread the buffs around. Also, the buff bot itself would be quite vulnerable without a shield of its own.
Arky: I'm doing this basically because I can =) The buff bot is basically a very dumb perma-pet.
So basically, I'm stuck with keeping the buff-bot as-is, or rerolling it as either a Sonic or possibly Empath...
Then again, i DO have a second slot on the freebie account... who says I can't have my cake and eat it, too? =D
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
I'd go with Emp;
PBU Fort = 37 Defense to everything, which can be useful even on def capped characters if you happen to run into defense debuffs (not to mention the much-dreaded Psi hole).. Fort also yields a decent +32% or so Damage Boost, and a to-hit bonus that will help your blast toons obtain perma Snipe. a Power boosted Fort alone should get them there.
CM for obvious reasons, but it also helps with Blind
Regen/Recovery Auras rotated out with AB (since you don't think you can get AB perma without IOs) should mitigate all endurance issues and give your toon loads of regen. Not to mention huge recharge bonuses while AB is up.
As for the buffbot's survival.. Well, if you're not morally against it have them auto-fire Healing Aura. Give them Tough/Weave and an APP shield, stacked with Maneuvers. Stealth might help prevent them from gaining accidental aggro. So you should only have to worry about AoEs.
Empathy or Sonic.
Empathy suits Blasters and others who really appreciate the mez protection and defence.
Sonic is better on melee-ers who close in to bring the Disruption Field to the enemies and can stack the resists with their own. Sonic on a Kheldian is fantastic, by the way.
No one has even mentioned Pain Domination...You could also go Cold domination or Thermal Radiation. Both of those bring buffs/debuffs to the table that can be plenty useful. Pain Domination is an amazing set with far more buffs and utility than Empathy in my mind.
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If you play solo+bot nothing beats Ill/Emp
Adrenaline Rush + Fortitude gives you everything you'll ever need and PA let you through pretty much any kind of problems. Only other match imo is Ill/Cold because of -rege -special but empathy is so very better on anything that is not high regen AV.
So Painbringer and World of Pain are inferior to empathy in what way?
Currently Playing:
Rage King - SS/Regen Brute (50+3)
Soulfire Darkness - Dark/Fire Tank (50+2)
Deaths Final Embrace - Kat/Dark Brute (50+3)
ULTIMATE REGEN GUIDE I22
1- Controllers cant be pain. Illusion is godly for a bot.
2- Defenders cant be pain. If you only care about buffs Defenders are the best.
3- Corruptors are strictly inferior as bot, the hybrid nature of corruptors make them a very active AT.
4- MM could be good with a very passive secondary but after a certain level of difficulty keeping pets alive requires very tight management.
5- As for buffs stricly speaking. I think Pain would be better to support a def focused melee toon and Emp for a resist focused melee set. Overall Pain is more damage.
Here's how Painbringer and WoP are inferior to empathy for a buffbot
17%ish resists (WoP enhanced)
15%ish to-hit (WoP enhanced)
16% damage (WoP)
50% damage (Painbringer, not perma on free account)
To keep WoP perma for a free account, that doesn't pay for enhancement license, some of the resists and/or tohit enhancements would have to be sacrificed for recharge enhancement.
vs
23.7% def (Fort enhanced)
29.7% to-hit (Fort enhanced)
or better yet
38.5% def (PBU+Fort)
48.2% to-hit (PBU+Fort)
31.25% damage (Fort, so perma)
100% recharge (AB not perma on free account)
This isn't really close for a buffbot.
Pain could sneak in 5- 25% recharge by spamming Enforced Morale, but that has its downsides.
Pain can make good argument for team support but I'm not going to get into that, a buffbot is for buffing one player.
What I didn't glean from the OP was using this buffbot on a team, which was mentioned later downthread. My answers may have been a little different knowing that, but more accurately I wouldn't have offered anything since I'm against 2-boxing on teams, unless every member of the team knows what's going on and approves.
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My point is:
1- If you need the defense Empathy is better.
2- AP can reivialise a tricky situation, no MM or Corr primary can.
So I've been experimenting with dual-boxing lately, and I wanted some opinions.
For those who don't know, dual-boxing is the act of playing two accounts at once, either by using two separate computers, or in my case, running two versions of CoH on the same computer at the same time, and alt-tabbing when needed.
Currently, I'm using a FF/Psi as my buff bot. Shields that i only have to recast every 4 minutes, Leadership toggles and a couple spammable attacks I can put on auto seems to be a fairly decent deal.
The issue I'm having is that, aside from some outlying cases, my main characters tend to have most of the defense they need. My mind/kin is def-capped, and my mind/time can get close to that with powerboosted Farsight. So I guess the issue is, all my buffbot is bring to the table is mez protection and a minor damage buff, and i was wondering: is there something better?
Now i'd like to keep Psi for thematic reasons, also because the immob power is useful for my Mind Controllers. I'm wondering though what primary would be better?
For instance, should i go empathy? Fortitude on auto, hit auras when they come up, and switch to cast clear mind if i don't have a break-free?
Maybe sonic for Resistance (+mez protection) instead of defense, as well as a potent debuff?
The other sets have pros and cons, too (the cons mostly being I'd rather not be covered in flames or ice all the time), but I'd like to hear what everyone else has to say =)
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)