ChickenChow

They should just let us buff ourselves and be damned with the consequences.

The only set that'd get really crazy would be Empaths and they'd still be no more powerful than Dark Defenders are now. And their damage would still suck.

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That's hardly the point.

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No that's totally the point.

You're lucky in that you're Dark/*. Everyone else would be better off as a Controller. Yes even Rads.

I mean seriously... a FF Controller can cap out a Boss's ToHit and completely stop incoming attacks. Bubbled pets are almost indestructible and probably do more damage than the Defender could ever hope to.

A /Emp doesn't even need to heal if the mobs never attack. RA is so good that the nerfed recovery doesn't matter. Throw Fort on your pets and you're even doing more damage than Defender would.

Kinetcs? 400% is 400% no matter how you look at it. The difference in SB after Hasten is less than 5%. The recovery is high enough that the difference doesn't matter. Add in FS to cap your pets (OBSCENE damage) and SiphonSpeed to get even more pets (OMG!) and you've got the best secondary ever~

Storm? All of the debuffs with none of the scatter! What's not to love?! Oh, I guess you have to take Gale at level1. Pity that.

Rad? How many Rad Defenders boast they can defeat any AV? How many Rad Defenders walk around The Hive soloing monsters? Rad is probably the most balanced Defender set... but you'd STILL be more powerful as a Controller.

I've played a Kin/Elec. Whenever I play my Dark/Rad I feel like I'm cheating. The difference is so big I can't even SEE the Kinetic set from where I'm standing. Why is Dark so good? Because it's like a Controller

Something really needs to be done. Every Primary should be as powerful as Rad. Controllers need to not suck pre-32... and then they need to have their secondaries gutted. It won't happen though, because according to this thread Defenders are fine and the best balanced of all ATs. Don't bother getting your hopes up. When I5 hits Controllers will probably get a pre-32 boost... then we can all reroll and actually be useful/powerful rather than overshadowed buffbots we're designed to be.

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I don't see what the fuss is all about. My Dark/Elec defender is probably the most valuable player on Archvillain teams.

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Well of course you don't. You can solo them! The rest of us get screwed.

The message I get from this post is...
Don't bother making a Defender other than Rad/* or Dark/* because you're just setting yourself up to suck. And it's intended.

Guess it's back to soloing 8 player Invincible maps on my Scrapper.

For what it's worth... I'd move SB to 12, SP to 4, and push BallLightning back to 22. It only becomes as efficient as CB when you're fighting 3 or more mobs at once, and you're without any real defenses until 22 (SC + SOs). The way your build is you won't get any +def until 20s either. Single target is the way to go.

I'd cap your damage slotting at 4 too. With FS you'll be able to get +150% even against a single target so the 5th slot isn't really needed (you're only 17% from cap without it). Probably better off in SB. Once you get 30s and people start to drain their whole bar in one shot (the main ones being Blasters who won't be in range for Trans), you'll want more EndRec in it.

Going Stamina I'd say Trans definately doesn't need that many EndRec. With I3 out now you can fill a bar from 0 to full with only two EndRec. With Stamina you can probably live with only one. Changing the others to +rchg would probably help more.

Find some extra slots to put in FS too. It's your most powerful ability. It comes with an acc penalty so you probably still want one +acc even with Tactics, and the more +rchg you can get in it the better. Fly would be my obvious choice. Hover with that many slots is about the same as base Fly anyway. Are the two slots really worth the minute or two it'll save travelling through one set of zones that lots of people avoid?

If it was me I'd probably drop Fly entirely (keep 6 slot Hover) and grab stealth. Invis lets you kind of SC-Herd. You SC one group, then move to the next and SC, the move again and SC. Without any end to attack, the extra groups won't notice you until you SC and by then it's all over.

That's because an orange minion is two levels higher than an orange boss.

Drains work on the level. What they "con" doesn't seem to be important.

The real downside to dropping Stamina is you lose the regen after your big nuke. You HAVE to use a CaB before you can get back in to using Trans. With Stamina you can be up and going again in 3 seconds or so. That's probably the single biggest reason I don't use my nuke as often as I could.

Grouped with a rad, emp or another kin it's okay... but solo I very rarely use it because I get stuck with 10 seconds of "kill me please" mode.

Pre-Tranferance and SOs it's probably better to play like a single target blaster.

Without Transferance, you're going to run dry popping SC every 10 seconds or so. When that happens you're doomed.

Plus, without FS there's no real reason to be AEing large groups of mobs. With only SP you get just as much of a damage boost from 1 guy as you'd get from 10.

Once I got Transferance, SC became viable against small groups of mobs even though it only had DOs in it at the time (had been exping with the wrong contacts ).

Up until SOs I pretty much just cycled Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt until the mob died. Boring but effective. AEs never got a look in because I didn't have the +recovery I needed to support them. That's solo of course, in a group I spent so much end on buffing and healing I couldn't really spare any for my fairly gimpy attacks.

Downside of Leadership stuff is it takes just so damn long to start back up once you get held or something.

I dunno about everyone else, but I still get stunned now and again, especially when I'm grouped. It feels like in the same time it takes to start up Maneuvers/Tactics, I can start ALL my other toggles (Tough, Weave, Stealth, Hover). I'd rather just stick an extra +acc in the things I care about (FS and Trans* really) and know that it's always working. The end drain on them sucks, but I really hate that thumbs up animation.

Slotted right, Kin/Elec means the bosses don't fight back. At all. They just stand there waiting to be arrested. That's about as docile as you get without actually holding them.

Siphon Speed is only really useful if you're REALLY impatient at low levels and just HAVE to have a travel power.
OR
Slowing down AVs that have really dangerous AE attacks. If they move too much then the people standing semi-close by (FF, storm, dark, pet controller, whatever) will get hit and possibly owned. By the time you're fighting AVs most people are smart enough to control their agro though (and if they're not then it's natural selection).

Outside of that I don't think it's good for anything. The ToHit check and lack of +stealth makes it inferior to SuperSpeed as a travel power, and its single target nature makes it inferior to just about any other slow effect.

I had it from 6-24, but after I had SuperSpeed a while it got removed from the quickbar.

I haven't actually taken it, but Tesla Cage should be really useful for taking down some of the more annoying mobs.

Being able to hold a PP so it doesn't get MoG, or a Sapper, or DE mushrooms... pretty useful.

In the type of build that Quason is going with though, I just don't think there's room for it at the levels it'd be most useful.