Cognito

Im rolling a TA now...

NB HINT TO ALL THOSE THINKING OF ROLLING A TA: DO NOT, I REPEAT NOT, PUT THE WORDS "ARROW" "BOW" "FLETCHING" OR ANY OTHER RELATED WORDS IN YOUR SUPERHERO NAME...

Beleive me ive tried...

1st TA Toon: Crimson Arrow - 2 team invites up to level 10, kicked once for being a TA

2ns TA Toon: [Name classified] - No more than 5 mins waiting for an invite...

Oh, and I love TA, its just I do feel it needs a bit of a buff,,, and its getting it apparently

Think there is some stuff on US boards... thats how I got it. Not an expert but basically I think it works:

Old stylee: Enemys Accuracy%age - Yourdefence% = CHance they will hit.

[Meaning defence becomes progressivly less valuable against higher level mobs, lts and bosses, UNLIKE resistance]

New stylee: Enemys accuracy * [100-your defence as %] = Enemies %age chance of hitting you

[Yummy]

Pardon my nonsensical maths, and bear in mind this is based on my intepretation of posts, and NOT firm evidence...

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The problem with stone/ice is that the -recharge will effect the ice secondary. This is second hand info, but a stone/ice player told me that he was unable to perma ice slick with granite on.

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He's mistaken, unless for some reason he refuses to slot it for recharge. It's not an aggro grabbing power, though. You need to grab the aggro before dropping it.

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Thanks for correcting me... Ill tell him when I see him

Personally, I have always been a bit uneasy teaming with a perma-granite (not stone in general) tanks... I never feel they truly grab the aggro. Have seen one wisely take taunt and the presence pool though... much more reassuring and probably the best tank you could get

I have sneaking supsicion that ice tanks will be FOTM in issue 7 - and from the looks of the plethora of experienced players rolling ice tanks up to 20 (when unscaling defence starts to be problematic) I would say Im not the only one

What will be interesting is Ice tanks are the only tanks with debuff for a defence (CE) and we will start to see stacked CE... How would you like your pentad team to face 5 ice tanks and suddenly be caught in five chilling embraces and hit by five energy absorbtions...

The problem with stone/ice is that the -recharge will effect the ice secondary. This is second hand info, but a stone/ice player told me that he was unable to perma ice slick with granite on.

Therefore, it seems that granite still will suffer from the agro grab problem relative to other tanks.

Given that granite is the most resiliant one can get, if there was not a serious aggro-grab problem with it, the sets would be very unbalanced.

Just rerolling my ice/ice for concept reasons (previously got up to 30). I took taunt at level 10 and have been very popular because of it - gasps of "OMG you can actually tank!" from experienced players around this level.

Just a thought, you may still want to get this before level 18... perversly enough it seemed to add to my survivability because the defenders/trollers/blasters werent running off all the time trailing urine...

Best tank heh?

(/em ranton)

The best tank IS not a greedy scrapper wannabe who dosent want any debt, like most of the low level tanks i see these days. the amount of tauntless tanks is incredible. Often can barely hold their own fair share of aggro, let alone the lions share

(/em rant off)

The best tank IMHO is simply this:

A tank who can hold a goodly proportion of the aggro without falling.

If you do this as a stoney, you better make sure you are well equipped and skilled to grab the aggro, big time (taunt not optional, probably heavlily slotted).

If you do this as an ice, you will need to make sure you dont grab ALL the aggro and die .

So its skill, not AT - getting enough aggro (and that means most of it folks) to protect your team whilst not dying.

Of course, im answering from a team perspective...

(/em ranton)
If you are a selfish "Ohyeahiteambutreallyijustwanttosoloandsometimeste amwithoutevergettingdebtandwatchingmyteammatesdie" kindof tank, as seems FOTM, id go for a invun/energy tank and skip taunt.
(/em rantoff)

Pardon me, I have a filty cold, which as a mag3 irritable effect

Hint: Set up 9 macro's explaining anchors.. i got bored of the same explanations over and over...

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Didn't know that. Guess taunt not having the 5/6 mob restriction it has now just made it less obvoius.

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Ice primary is, IMO, unbeatable for aggro grabbing. No other primary comes close

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I don't have personal experience with this, but from what I've heard, Ice primary can't handle that much agro. But I'm starting an Ice/* tanker soon, so I'll be noticing if it's untrue.

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And thats the delicious irony... . Its like the opposite end to granite who can handle the aggo but cant grab it.

Howver, issue 7 and scaling defence will make ice a much more hardy build. According to Spad's mathematics (em/bow down in awe), Ice is actually the most resiliant tank pre granite anyway.

I have it, but quite frankly only because im in the highly highly unusual position of struggling to find powers that I actually want IN to my build.

Ice primary is, IMO, unbeatable for aggro grabbing. No other primary comes close.

TO be honest (back on thread) as long as a tank has taunt at all these days I'm happy. It seems an optional extra these days. Teamed with a lvl 40 tank without taunt today, and couldnt quite beleive it. Aggro management was, predictably, poor, and team struggled, oh well. I am becoming quite draconian in this - if a tank hasnt got taunt, its not worth him in the team. I suppose there are some very skilled tanks (? icy ones) who dont need taunt, but tauntless tank is the closest I ever come to kicking some one for their build (which isnt very close at all to be honest, but hey!)

Its a bit rubbish IMO. However, I do use it halfway through a bigboss/AV fight on the commando usually when hes at half health. Even unslotted, it does provide a fairly substantial survival benefit.

Still needs a buff though! Compared to the other equivilanet powers of other MM sets, it is truly underwhelming.

MM are top of my nerf betlist for issue 7 (followed by granite armour and regen scrappers). Robots are top of the top too

Aside from all the issues above, I find that brutes main enemy is end... the way to win with a brute is with a sky high fury bar and its usually end thats my enemy rather than damage (in a team, anyway).

This being the case, the new electric armours / attacks may have some significant value, as well as consume from the fire armour set.

Booo! I want to be original!!!!

I rolled a mutant grav/sonic for concept anyway - envisiged him as being able to control molecules and what to vibrating molecules cause? Sound!

Id say rad is actually harder to play than kinetics... or at least harder for the TEAM to play as you constantly have t tell them not to kill the anchor, and to play well you have to cluster enemies around the anchor...

TA is I suppose weaker than rad, but the clustering necessity is eliminates... there is a HUGE AoE debuff. Against certain enemy groups (or in silly teams) TA would outshine Rad i think.

Given TA and Rad both have two hold powers, they are inherently attractive to controllers.

Personally ive got a grav/sonic on the go at the moment because no-one picks sonic!

If a defender cant get a team, then there is a real problem. If an EMPATH cant get a team, when PuG and Noobies dont think any other kind of defender is anything other than a leech, and at that level...

Given the glutton of empaths around (about 80-90% of all defenders at a guess )? are people saying that empaths are actually better than other defenders based on experience?

THere is of course a psychological effect of "seeing" green numbers occur bigger and more frequently with empaths, whilst other effects are far more subtle (Hey my scrapper rocks! hes whipping through these +4's - 2 Trick Archers leave team - faceplant).

If it really is the case that empaths are so much better than any other defender (and I personally think this is far from the case - I actually think empaths need buffing), then thats a serious problem with balance which does need to be addressed

Just playing around with a lvl 12 fire/ice.. chose ice cause its the most defensive secondary (CE + Ice Slick) and I fancied the debt-aholic life of a blapper (hey, its not my main, im in no rush to level )

Purely by accident, I have found that rain of fire + chilling embrace is actually rather tasty... Admittedly you have to be blapping. RoF normally a pain cos of the scatter effect, but if they are running veeeerrrrrrrryyyyyy slloooooooowwwwwwwwly away from you, then things are okey dokey. In fact, I find it a pretty useful way of keeping mobs engaged in things other than attacking me.

Anyone else found this?

And any further advice on fire/ice greatfully received.

Scaling defence in issue 7 is about to give bubblers their heyday... i strongly suspect that SR/Bubblers/Ice tanks will be over powered because of it...

Bubblers mez protection is rather tasty IMHO. And i know the detention bubble annoys a lot of playes, but it is also rather tasty in a good team... very tasty actually.

I still say that all sets are balanced, or at least will be come issue 7 and scaling defence.

Choking power heh? well its a bit on/off. It either is worse than useless or better than great and it all depends on one thing... are you teaming with an aggro sucking tank

With so many tanks not taking taunt, skranking and IMO being thoroughly useless, its a bit weak until later levels.

Basically, my tactic is this: Anchor debuffs on someone next to tank, run to the anchor (and the tank), and put on choking cloud. The logic is that anything you aggro with choking cloud will hopefully be drawn to the tank instead, and even if it does attack you will be debuffed. Under such circumstances choking power is amazing... you will never get such control in your life, about 50% of everything around you held at any one time.

DO NOT USE when no (good) tank, DO NOT USE when lots of AoE flying around.

So its like many powers, use it wisely. IMHO a lot of players blindly spam all of there powers - dont - only use ones that work for the team. IE as a rad user you dont want a storm user spamming gale "because it keeps them away from me", or a fire user spamming rain of fire "because i do the damage dood!" (unless a sassy controller like yourself hits AoE before the rain etc etc). Hey this is long winded but I like choking power, only use it in the correct situation though.

Im not knocking empaths at all, I love them...

Im just fed up of teams and other people thinking that empaths are head and shoulders above all other defenders. They are in a bad team, they are not in a good team

I get by with 3 acc debuff and 3 def debuff with RI, cos I like never missing

Its an END hog mind, so other things have to pay the penalty.

I would have thought choking cloud a more attractive option earlier on for you given its holding power. Team with a good aggro magnet tank (mmm Ice tank + Rad user mmmmm) and its wonderful.

Well, its simply this...

All defender powers are useful, and should be balanced.. in my opinion they are. Yes, all/most empath powers are great. But, all/most defender powers are great with a few exceptions.

So, from experience my opinion is that nothing is better than an empath on a chaotic PuG... absolutely nothing, it stands head and shoulders above anything else period. But in good teams above lvl 20, again, in my experience, they do not RELATIVELY shine.

I come back to, again, the logic of AoE/Single target effects. Like all toons, the higher this ration, the relatively better they will be in large teams and the relatively worse they will be in small teams. Empaths has a very low ratio compared to other teams. This logic applies to all toons - e.g. a spine scrapper is much more useful in a large team than a MA scrapper. Scrappers are worse in large teams than blasters. A defender who takes leadership pools is more useful than one who takes hasten, invisibility and phase shift.

I appreciate your opinion is that empath powers ROCK, and good for you. I just happen to have the above formula for how useful toons are in teams, and empaths do relatively badly compared to other defenders. All the powers you mention are great, no question, except they tend to be single target effects. Rad/Dark debuffs are far less visible, but are almost entirely AoE and take the sting out of all enemies IF PLAYED CORRECTLY.

I should note that defenders always have a very high value in big teams, bigger than any other toon. So, im comparing defender primaries with each other, not toons in general.

Nope!

If anyone can come up with a convincing argument why empaths are better than other defenders in a GOOD team post level 20, i'd like to hear it...

Infact Id like to hear anyone argue why empaths are EQUAL to other defenders under such circumstances...

My logic is simple:

Empaths: 3 AoE powers, 6 single target powers... (and one of them is regeneration aura which is a highly dubious AoE)

Worst AoE / Single target ratio of any defender (IIRC and if you count sonic/ff single buffs as recharging so quick they buff the whole team)... therefore least valuable in any
group...

Logical replies only please

I have played rad/elec to lvl 40. Mainly because i dislike playing same ol same ol toons.

However, there are some significant advantages:

Elec sapping also means elec end giving (i.e. you gain end from your firing), meaning average end cost of your attacks is significantly lower than other secondaries... If you want to play a blasting defender, elec is good choice.

END sapping of elec is in essence a good combo with EMP and -end regen effects of Rad... BUT bear in mind end sapping has had a huge kick in the jubblies from the end boost of recent patch, and i do mean HUGE. Apparantly this is due for rectification at some later date (Castle said so! )

AoE of ball lightning and short circuit probably (just) outshines irradiate and neutron bomb overall, but there aint much in it.

Personally, by the time I have debuffed defence from Rad primary, there is little more to be gained from the -def effect of Rad secondary, as Im hitting everything 90% of time anyway, as are rest of team. You may wish to consider this as it actually IMHO means you arent getting a whole hillabeans out of rad secondary as a rad/rad.

Voltaic Sentinel aint that good, it aint that bad. Bear in mind it isnt a pet, just a white blob that you cant target and fires out bolts roughly equivilent to your lvl 1 power.

Takes yer pick. I have preffered rad/elec as allows me to be a semi - blaster (and given you target very debuffed foes, it is a modest but significant damage effect) for end reasons. Prior to the END buff patch recently, it was very effective, now its a bit equivical (but more attractive than further DEF debuffs of rad secondary IMHO), but this may be re-addressed by devs