Biospark

I would never recommend someone to go over to the Villain side. Hero is where its at

I do, however, offer up Luminara's guide to Kin/Dark as a scrapper-like defender option.
You should give that a try at least, before moving on to the other side.

Almost said Dark Side

Welcome to Defenders ! You picked a very interesting combination to start off with, and one which I have played a couple of times. I hope it meets your expectations.

As far as your build is concerned. I like how you have achieved perma-AM. Thats an awesome buff. Here are a couple of things I noticed though. ***oops, I was confused, looks like Garent's build is the one with Perma-AM, which is a good plan by the way.***

You 6-slotted Ball Lightning. I personally prefer only 5 slots. You get the recharge plus 95% dmg boost and losing the 6-piece set bonus is not a big loss. That gives you an extra slot. You 4-slotted Stamina. Not a big deal, but I would probably stay with just 3 slots there also. You only need a couple set bonuses to get just as much recovery and defenders seem (to me) to have little trouble getting +recovery in IO sets.
I also see a performance shifter in your Nuke. You dont use that power enough to make that a huge priority, but that's just my opinion. That is 3 slots you could move somewhere else.

If you can slide 2 slots around, putting 1 more pacing of the turtle in LR and 1 more stupefy in OG will yield you over 6% Ranged defense. This will help alot I feel. Also in Short circuit, I would swap the Performance shifters for Efficacy Adapters for more HPs. A good friend has convinced me that +HPs is a VERY good way to boost Defenders survival overall. And he was right! With Accolades and set IOs my main Defender sits around +30% HPs and it has made a very noticeable difference.

Finally, regarding your power choices, you will do fine with this build in a general sense.
However, I cannot imagine using Electrical Blasts without Tesla Cage, Radiation without EMP and Dark mastery without Soul Drain. Soul drain stacks really well with Assault, Enervating Field, AM and AIM. Some people even refer to Soul Drain as a mini-fulcrum shift. You should keep these three powers in mind if you find later the need to modify your build a little.

Good Luck

Well, in response to this I feel that some clarification is in order.

Recovery Aura does take away all endurance concerns while its running, but is not available all the time. Actually having better endurance recovery built into the AT would make this power more of a team power than a solo power. But one thing I have to say Ultimo is that the recovery in no way transfers into extra damage, unless you believe that a defender will avoid using certain high-cost powers when its not running.

Here is my take on endurance usage problems for Defenders and Empathy in particular.
Not only do we need more DPE to arrest villains, but the COST of running our primary powers is pretty significant. For example Empathy solo (Pre-SO) has healing Aura, which is an AoE heal and its cost is huge (13 base iirc). Prior to Stamina and SO's this power is the solo Empath's only defense but its use is very detrimental to your End Bar.
After Stamina and SO's it becomes less painful to use as far as endurance, but is STILL an issue because of its 2+ sec activation. I have actually used this heal and watched all the HPs gained after casting be knocked back off during the activation time, meaning a net result of having the same HPs as prior to using the Heal.

So, considering these things my first choice would be a small increase to our damage, which will SAVE endurance by making fights shorter. I would like to see Defenders returned to their original 0.75 modifier that existed prior to ED and GDN.

If that were not an option, my second choice would be more HPs to toughen up the AT to survive better solo.

And finally, I think our Inherent needs a rework so that is does SOMETHING when solo.
Choices I like are A) counting my health in the global endurance saving calculations
or B) Give me a stacking effect of global endurance reduction, similar to how blasters get a Dps stacking effect.

But to recap, less endurance != more damage UNLESS you get that endurance savings thru Higher DPS not DPE

Hello again Ultimo_

I decided to try this arc with Biospark (At least the first one with Cat Burgler in it).

Ran the first mission twice. Succeeded both times

First set at +0/x1 No Bosses
He spawned as a Boss and surprised me, even though I have tactics, SS+Celerity.
No worries though, immobilized him with electric fence, drained his endurance and whittled him down fairly easily. No inspies used.

Second run was at +0/x1 With Bosses. He spawned as a level 50 EB.
This time I saw him first. The fight took awhile, full cycle of my RA's (150-180sec estimated). Had to pop Powersink a couple times for refilling my endurance bar and used 3 inspies at the start of the fight (Red, Purple, Yellow). He never got a heal off, missed on my first SC but got him immobilized and drained pretty easily.

My conclusions are ;

1) CatBurgler is a pretty cool little NPC. Challenging, but very doable.
However, I am level 50 with all my epic powers and all but 10 IOs from a completely IO'd build. My defense is over 20% to Range, Melee and Psi, 14% to AoE (Darn BotZ KBs).

2) My strategy is very different than a FF/Nrg, so results would vary across different combinations. Draining his endurance completely negated his healing and a great deal of his potential DPS.

3) Considering how my Energy-Device blaster plays, I suspect that your strategy would need to be perfected against this kind of mob. Does he animate when he heals ? When does he start healing ? With KB, alot is about timing. If you can keep him on his back side the majority of the fight and hover out of melee range, I would think he could be soloed.


My questions for you are regarding your build. What do you have in your ST attacks ?
Do you have all three of them ? (Power Bolt, Power Blast, Power Burst).
What level are you at ? What is your Melee and Ranged Defense when you take him on ?

bottom line, this EB may just be too much for your current build and IO set-up.

Thanks for the input Dr.Mike !

My +HP/Regen focus came to me after playing my most recent FF characters (FF/AR, FF/Arch, FF/Rad, and of course my newest FF/Nrg).
I started noticing that with all the FB juggling, I can disrupt the flow of incoming damage and prolong the fight sufficiently for my low dps to whittle villains down, and that got me thinking that regen would really be able to provide good effect. Still low level, so dont know how this will fair when I start facing hard-hitters.

PFF+Aid Self is very thematic since I am a Tech Origin. Was still debating if waiting for the 30s was too long of a wait. I have a feeling that I will need it much sooner.

I also thought that Deflection shield would be better moved down to pre-lvl 20 for Posi runs. Just not sure where to make the cut. Detention really helps solo, and I kinda need the 3 ST attacks as well. Maybe after getting past 22 (for the 3rd or 4th time hehe), I can do a small respec and move them around. Afterall, I will only be doing sub-20 content at that point on teams. Very unlikely while solo.

The reason for avoiding Etorrent is just a personal one. I have never been a big fan of cones. Battles are pretty chaotic and cones seem less reliable to me. I will have Repulsion Bomb +Explosive Blast at some point, so my AoE needs will eventually be met.

As far as the Explosive Strike proc, tell you the truth, I have never looked at it.
I only recently started liking procs, since Bio has 4-5 of them now. I kinda like the random boost they give. I will check it out

Perhaps I have read this in the past PK

My personal theory on survival has 4 legs;

Avoidance (+def, -acc, hold, sleep, stun)
Mitigation (+res, dmgdebuff, slow, KB, immob, +HP)
Recovery ( healing, regen )
Speed ( +dps, +acc, +rech)

Each of these 4 categories need to be accentuated on ANY character to make them more survivable. The fourth category "Speed" relates to the amount of time your enemy is allowed to deal damage to you, so could theoretically be thrown into the second group, but I kinda like it having its own category.

Your absolutely correct Miladys, I actually did that with Biospark until about level 37.
But I remembered some advice I received at the begining about playing a balanced build and discovered that playing a balanced build "solo" has a few trade-offs, but with some adjustments to strategies you can easily play a "team-capable" build while solo well enough to do missions higher than base settings.

So, in essence, I am confident that building a defender for "Balance" is a good way to level up and learn both "offense" and "defense". My team bubbles may sit on my tray gathering dust while solo, but I will not have to spend twice the influence building the character or having to run to a trainer to switch builds either.

Yeah I love Thunderstrike, but originally I had 3 full sets and was well over 50% Ranged Def. Also Biospark currently runs 2 full sets of Devastion on 2 blasts and its awesome how often I get the Hold proc off. I have seen as many as 3 mobs "caged" at the same time.

The Psionic defense aint half bad either. I guess you could say I like lots of layers in my defense.

I will solo to 50, but once arriving at that goal, I fully intend on being balanced for team play. Biospark, while doing this same thing skipped all team powers until his late 30s, but by then I had realized that many powers that were "solo-targeted" from pools were quite skippable (like the entire fighting pool). So he respecced to be more Balanced around 37, even though he continued "Soloing" until level 44-45.

Does that help ?

Well, I am planning on soloing to 50, so the dead-spot in the low-mid 20s was where I put them. I could shift them around some and get them prior to level 20 (mostly for POSI's), but didnt want to hold off on Stamina and Flying prior to 20.

And yeah, I have read your guide. Couple of times in fact.
I was hoping you would be one of the folks responding to power picks.

What would you drop/pickup on this build ? Lose Assault to get Force Bubble ?

???

Well this will not be what it looks like for quite awhile PK, hehe

But seriously, Assuming the IOs could be generic until the 30's and 40's,
what obvious things can you see.

It gets Harder, trust me

My Empath went thru a really rough spot at 17-22, only slightly easier from 22-28.
But after getting a Hold (Telsa Cage) it got much easier.

My new FF has Detention Field AND Force Bolt. So he doesnt even have to wait till 28 to start pre-empting mezzers. To be honest, I have travelled this road before. I had a FF/Nrg up to 23, prior to deleting him and making him a Blaster. But I have learned alot since then. I was trying to use too many toggles (Hover, Maneuvers, Dispersion, Tough, Weave) all at once. Horrible idea for a sub-25 Defender (or Blaster even).

Hover, Dispersion, then maybe Medicine and Hasten, wait for Epic toggle and IO sets.

PFF+Aid Self = I WIN

Hmmm, maybe this was the change I am referring to.
I was not playing tanks as often back then, but my SG Leader sure was, and I recall that something changed in regards to his endurance usage that made him very happy.
It was sometime right after they took the root penalty off Unyeilding.

Anyway, long time ago, and my memory is bad.

Hehe, funny you say this Bill, cause thats exactly what I am doing.

Much as my Solo Empathy project, I am going to give him a small slush fund and solo him all the way to 50.
Compare his death totals to Biosparks (19 iirc) and see what happens.

So, if you see Powercell flying around Protector, wish him luck

Ultimo_ I think you tend to take comments too defensively.
There are different levels of constructiveness in people's responses too, so if someone is deliberately being rude or callous, just ignore it. But one reason I keep coming to the forums is that I have LEARNED alot here. From guides, from veteran responses, etc..
And I personally choose to give back whenever I can, because no one forced Veterans like StratoNexus, Dr.Mike, Laughing_Man, Balanced, Bill_Z_Bubba and countless others to come to the forums and share their wisdom. But they do just that.

So, I am willing to keep trying to help you and not out of any kind of mean-spirited purpose, but because I know that behind your Avatar photo and one-word Forum name is a real person that enjoys this game. If you didnt "Love" this game, you would not waste your time coming here again and again, correct?

1) EBs are NOT solo oriented content. I have beaten them with Scrappers and Blasters with regularity. But fail to beat them with Defenders, Controllers and even Tankers with equal regularity. As much as I wish it to be different, changing this would involve "toppling" the house of cards of "game balance" that exists. No amount of wish or want will make this better, so I choose to move on and focus on what I can effect.

2) Defenders are ALOT better than I first believed. Its simply going to take more time and effort to realize their potential "SOLO" than other ATs. Can other ATs realize even greater success given the same investment in time and influence ? Oh Yeah. But I "know" that my defender brings ALOT more "suvivability" to ANY team than a Scrapper. As much as I chafe at this form time to time, this was the way they made the game. IF I could solo a "Tiny" bit better, I would be happy, but as many have pointed out to me, any increase that makes Defenders better at solo "could" come hand-in-hand with a nerf to their team role. Many folks would be very unhappy with that.

3) You are suffering from the choice of your primary, much as I have. My first 2 defenders were FF/Rad and Emp/Rad. Little did I know how different they are from the debuffing sets and was sorely "unimpressed" with Defenders from the start. When I opened that shiney box back in 2004 and read the 5 ATs, Defenders were the one I wanted to play.
And here we are 5 years later, and BOTH these primaries (Emp and FF) are, for the most part, weaker and unchanged. (The change to Repulsion Bomb gives me hope that Empathy could still see a small boost of some kind). but the point I want you to accept is that Forcefields does not have the same soloing tools of say "Radiation", so is weaker in that respect, but on a team Forcefields is MUCH more powerfull, especially as the difficulty goes up AND is also MUCH more easy to play in providing team defense. I love radiation solo, but I Hate it on teams, because most every person will not take that extra fraction of a second required to NOT KILL MY ANCHORS.

Its all about balance, and you chose Forcefields. That choice means that you will not reach the Heights of Solo play of other ATs, or even other Defenders that dont ryhmn with "Empathy", but what you can do for a Team is absolutely amazing.
I "Know" this, because I have seen it. Thats the balance we accept, or dont accept.
And I dont get to make that choice for you, only for myself.

Good Luck Ultimo_

You are not alone

I also agree that if my blasts do half the damage of another AT, its simply logical that the cost should be less as well. Tankers, iirc received a endurance cost reduction on their attacks for the same exact reason. I have been waiting for the Defender discount for quite awhile. To the point that I have even suggested that defenders get a stacking bonus effect similar to blaster's inherent, but instead of dps increase, we get a endurance global reduction. Sure would make soloing easier. Would also be nice on teams.

I strongly disagree with your statements here. There is (and should be) content that requires a bit more power and/or team-mates to overcome. And on top of that, you are trying to express that AE arcs should follow the same "balance" paradigm that regular game arcs (made by developers) attempt to follow. The big problem with this is the arc creator. YOU (plural meaning anyone making arcs) can make completely broken and un-beatable custom situations. You CANNOT talk about game balance in respect to AE arcs. Thats ludicrous. Anyone with a little knowledge of their character can make a custom mob that completely "Hoses" their AT and/or powerset.

This proves my point above exactly. Thats alot of healing, and I bet any low-dps AT would have a serious headache with this.

I have always believed that Defenders got the short end of the DPS stick because of the state of the game shortly after launch, and further that with ED and GDN it just got worse, but the more I hear of your examples, the more I am convinced that you are attempting things that are not normal difficulty for your character's actual ability to defeat villains. Perhaps you dont like playing at the game's base difficulty. Or maybe you believe that if one character of Level "X" can do something, every character of that level should be "Equally" capable. This is not true in the game. And there are alot of reasons for it. I play defenders because I love playing a "Support" role on teams, so my only "Dissatisfaction" with defenders comes when I attempt to solo. And further this ability to SOLO has developed MUCH slower than other ATs. What my Scrappers can do at 25 is MUCH more impressive than what my defenders can accomplish solo. But turn the tables to teaming and its a "whole different basket". My scrappers uhm "Kill or get Killed" on teams, often at the same time it seems. My Defender can make even a crappy team smell like a spring day. And THAT's what I love about them. Would it be cool if they could solo better ? Absolutely. Does it look like this is gonna happen ? Well...

This last statement should tell you something though. If you are that unhappy with defenders, play something else that matches your expectations for the game.
I can guarantee that no developer will care whether you cannot solo a custom arc, and think thats a logical argument for how this AT needs a boost.

Yeah, I was not sure about that. I was kinda going off the Black and Purple graphic and thinking that it might be "Quantum", but either way, the susceptability to Quantum damage is what made me drop the Khelds and go back to the Hero ATs which did not suffer this major "achilles heal".

You are correct Jade_Dragon regarding many powersets having certain built in weaknesses, and to be quite fair, I steer away from them as much as possible as well.

My First scrapper was MA/SR and I would love to have stayed with it, but it was not my kind of challenge. Waiting till late 30s to feel "super" and being required to take 8/9 of the powers didnt seem very fair.

Well if the villains called "Galaxy" (Council) are any indication, then no, regular ATs are not vulnerable to the damage. However, my understanding is that Kheldians are "vulnerable" to Quantum damage, so they take more damage than a standard AT.

Also, if I am not mistaken, "Quantum weaponry" is generally only present if you have a Kheldian on your team. Not every spawn has a "Quant" in it, but its prevelant enough that you MUST react to it when present.

Hard to join in on a thread so huge, but I thought I would share my opinion.
Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to how my issues are not real.

The reason I tried and dumped my Kheldians is very simple ; Quantum Weapons.

Seriously, giving me an unlockable AT (Which says Reward to me) and then punishing me in such a harsh manner is just plain mean. Issues with Forms; Dont care, I only play human-form. Sound effects or graphics, meh, I can deal with these. Keybinds, dont need em.
But being 2-shot from some bozo in the back that I didnt notice till it was too late, no thanks, I can play a blaster or empath and have better odds.