DrMike2000

I wouldnt advise it.
They're the two lowest damage Controller primaries. Even backed up by Kin they'll be hard work to solo.

Earth at least allows you to leverage Sands of Mu vet power by providing -Def in every attack, which will help immeasurably when solo-ing.
I'd also say that Earth also feels a lot chunkier and more masculine than Ice in its animations and graphics.

Wow! Nice work!

I took one on in a Defender duo the other day, and couldn't budge its health much at all, even with Freezing Rain and Tar Patch.

It couldnt budge ours either though...

Can you cast ally buffs on the workbench?

Could a solo Sonic Defender, for example, cast Disruption Field on their workbench when they fight a boss?

Must try this in Wentworths next tiem I get the chance...

I've got to agree with Demon Hunter here. Its not your call to decide when a teammate needs to get in a bit of practice lining up cones while moving at high speed.

If someone asks you to hold back on a buff for whatever reason and you deliberately buff them because you think you know better, you're being a pain in the butt.

For a Smashing/Lethal Def build you could go:

16% from slotted Ice Armor
7.5% from 2 Kinetics Combats
4.065% from Enfeebled Operation (2 bonuses)
3% from Steadfast IO in Tough
5.6% from slotted Weave
2% from Hover or CJ with a def IO in the default slot.

Thats 38% Defence vs Smashing and Lethal. I reckon thats enough to survive along with Drain Psyche.

This is too cool!
I'd always figured that changing body types could be done, its nice to see that suspicion confirmed.

"Take it from one who knows"

That would be a pop-up saying "Please dont give us any more money".

So I doubt it

I've teamed with three people this week - playing for short periods in the dead of US night.

Two were fully fleshed out characters with bios and we talked in character the whole time - not a single double brace to be seen.

The other one was a all-caps named character broadcasting that he needed help getting to the next level. He responded to in-character chat when presented with it.

So I'd say its alive and well.

Because of Resistance resisting Resisteance debuffs, as Luminara explianed, Resistance Debuffs always effectively multiply your base damage by a scalar.

50% Resistance Debuff will make you and your team do 150% of the damage you'd do without the debuff, regardless of the target's initial Resistance numbers.

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The real problem with Cold is the graphical effects, same with Cold Armour. I can't even begin to imagine the pain of spending my entire exsistance with 7 snowmen.

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Its awesome. Its like having your own frosty the ice golem army.

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Unless you're the defender creating the golems, the graphical effects get really annoying. That's my point of view, but I suspect it's shared by others. I don't go through all the effort in the costume generator so the results can be obliterated by someone's overbearing ice shields. And it gets difficult to keep track of who's who on the team when they all look the same.

Don't get me wrong, I love the defense the shields give, but the fx suck.

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How is this different from storm defender using hurricane or a sonic defender making everything boom orange or a FFer making everyone look like hamsters in rolly balls?

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A force field make my character look like my character with a bubble around them.
Sonic shields make my character look like my character with a strong orange glow around them.
Cold shields make my character look like a humanoid block of ice and if I look carefully I can see my character inside.

The difference is that with the Cold Shields the effect is seen first before the character. With most other buffs, the character is seen first, then the effects.

Its subjective, but it comes up in pretty much every thread about Cold Domination. Isn't that enough to indicate that it's a problem?

Cold Domination is an awesome set in terms of game mechanics, but many people's first reaction is that its the one with ugly shields.
It's not as bad as the problems Sonic had with its old migraine inducing effects, but I think its enough to keep the population of Cold Defenders lower than it could be.

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Whenever someone specifically asks to not receive a buff, I make it a point to keep that buff on them all the time.

You want to RP your costume? don't team with people you don't know. No one is going to be admiring your costume but yourself during combat anyway.

Your system can't handle it? don't team period or adjust your graphic settings to make it bearable or here is an idea upgrade you memory or graphics card to something that isn't 5 or 6 years old.

Ignorant of it's benefits? Thank you for proving that you need the buff to even hope to function on the team.

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This seems unnecessarily malicious, kind of like you take pleasure in annoying teammates?

Do you check teammate stats before buffing? Maybe a well-slotted Super Reflexes Scrapper really doesnt benefit from the Cold Shields significantly. Even a IO SR scrapper with Combat Jumping will get close to the cap with just Arctic Fog.

You're very disparaging about other players wanting to look the way they look in-game, yet you're quite into the way your own characters look judging by the links in your signature.

Its been brought up in about 4 threads on the front page of these forums today how Cold Shields have over-obtrusive graphics. Would you be in favour of toning them down?

When someone scores well in darts in the North of England, we say "Good arrows!"

So yeah, right first time.

Im guessing you have Positron's Blast in Fire Cages for the Recharge?
The Accuracy and Recovery bonuses are probably pretty much irrelevant.

I couldn't help but think that Gravitational Anchor's Hold Proc would be nicer in Fire Cages than Ring of Fire, just for wider coverage.

And then put Decimation into Ring of Fire to get the Recharge bonus back.

I like the idea of fire cages popping up a bunch of Tesla Cages. But, with Flashfire up very quickly, maybe thats just a bit gimmicky?

If you do stick with Posi's, wouldn't the damage proc be better than Dam/Range? Not that I imagine you need to rely on procs in your AoE immobilise to do insane damage, of course...

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I second Kheldians.

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Yes. A Peacebringers blasts do lots of knockback. And Warshades. Both do a lot of AoE knockback.

On a Peacebringer you do get Combat Flight (a Hover copy) for free at level 10 and thus can hover above the bad guys and knock them straight down into the floor.

On a Warshade you can never Hover - the flight pool is barred to you.

I think a scrapper fits your bill best.

Or.. you could try an Earth Controller? They feel pretty hefty and aggressive. Stalagmites - your bread and butter control - is a foot stomp that causes stone spikes to erupt form the ground.
I enjoy my Earth/Kin - Kinetics helps balance the low base damage from Earth Control and Sands of Mu and Earths -Def help with the damage too.

Maybe an Earth/Energy Dominator? Earth Control with heavy duty punches? Energy Assault is getting beefed up quite a bit next issue.

Yep. My first character to earn a cape had the "Glam" hairstyle, which clips really badly with capes.

I was mildly disappointed for less than a minute, then gave her a ponytail when she wore her cape costume. Problem solved.

By me, the player.

I second Kheldians.

Peacebringers probably feel a bit more "masculine" - they trade some of a Warshades controller aspects for direct AoE damage and energy punches.

I'd recommend a tri-former, you'll enjoy the options presented. You can fire off 4 AoE's in quick succession if you switch between Human and Dwarf, or Lobster up and tank for the team if it gets rough, or play as a energy melee/energy blast/regen scrapper in between.

They take a little while to get really good, but no more than scrappers or controllers do.

I found it was a set that required patience.

If I planned each encounter properly, got a good angle and fired off a couple of debuffs (whatever was recharged) then the enemy were too slow/weak/blind whatever to cause me much trouble as we mowed them down.

But if an extra spawn got aggro'd or I ran in half-cocked, the team could be in trouble. It seemed to involve a lot more forward thinking than say Force Fields, where you buff and go, or Kinetics, where you can often salvage a bad situation with a massive heal or Fulcrum or something.

I hated doorways, where you can see one enemy and all his mates are standing round the corner. It was too easy to exclude someone from the initial debuff volley.

It felt different from most Defenders I've played, and thats a good thing. Its not weak by any means, my Trick Archer duo took down Dr Vazhilok by themselves easily enough.

A simple fishbowl helmet as a shoulder item would be absolutley brilliant.

It would clip with some hairstyles, but we already have hairstyles clipping with certain collars and capes. Leave that to the player to reconcile.

My first thoughts were "Trick Arrow is very clicky and has some long animations, so does Shout, drop Shout".

This has already been covered, so I second that motion.

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How would the experts feel about putting the "Steadfast perception: Res/Def" in Shadow Fall?

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I'd really try to find somewhere else to put it, like Dark Embrace. Shadow's Fall is absolutely crying for slots, since enhancing the resistance is nice, and if you're building up Defence you'll want to enhance that too. And end reducation doesnt hurt either. I usually go 1 Res IO, 2 Res/End IOs, 2 Def/End IOs and 1 Def IO, for maximum end reduction and around 90% maximum Def and Res slotting.

I dont think the build listed had Dark Embrace, but I got it for my Dark/Rad/Dark.

If you dont take Dark Embrace, then OK, go on then. Replace one of the Res/Ends with it. At least the Steadfast Unique also boosts resistance in the power, and you probably wont notice the slightly increased end cost.

If you can recolor Ice Armor into Ruby or Emerald Armor I might give it a go finally. I might even try out Cold Domination on a Defender if you can recolor the ally shields.

I've always liked blue flame - especially as it ties into Wilhelm Reich's orgone energy. Works well for a /Thermal Controller, for example. Electric blue Radiation Emission would look cool too.

I've got a couple of Sonic Resonance characters. I'll probably keep one orange (controls molecular density), make the other one pale blue (applies a telepathic analgesic to numb pain), or at least something a bit more subtle.

My Dark/Rad Defender controls light and darkness. Maybe make her blasts yellower or even white.

My Sonic/Mental/Force Blaster, who's blasts are all RP'd as psychic attacks may get a matching pink Sonic Blast and PFF.

The vague ripply effect of Super Reflexes recoloured to be more obviously a Force Field could look good.

I play on Virtue.
I'm in Australia, so I play during the hours just before maintenance mostly, with other Antipodeans, shift workers and insomniacs

I used to form pickup groups a lot, and you'd often get people leaving the team after a few missions because it was late, or they had to be somewhere, or they didn't give a reason. Just "Thanks for the team. I have to log"
It was never hard to find new bodies or keep rolling with less than a full team.

But I never got the sense that anyone was trying to annoy me by leaving.

I get what you're proposing, Samson. And your example there is what I was saying - people have to leave the team in the right order to avoid getting penalised.

I've never come across people leaving a team to make the leader mad or to spite people. You're saying this is a common occurrence?

If I did, I dont know if I'd want them to stick around just to get some goodies off me. Wouldn't it be preferable for them to leave anyway and pick up some new members who weren't trying to mess you around?

My bottom line is that anyone on a team I've formed is free to leave without obligation at a moments notice - I don't own anyone else's time in this game.

Once per cast of the power. So on a base 8 second recharge, this can only be better than once per 10 seconds if you spam the power.

I did the same with Gravity Control and Ice Control way back when I9 started. Both AoE immobilises could take 3 damage procs, and this amounted to decnt (buit not great) AoE damage.
The main problem was End, at 15 end per cast these are rather draining to spam. Thats when it helps being on a Kinetics superteam, I guess

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..and also,when you are on a team,we could link all other players to the team leader..In other words,if people quit before the team leader does,the bar that you earn for teamage goes down a bit


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I really dont like this idea. Its too much like penalising players for having to go and take care of stuff in RL.

What if the team leader goes AFK when the teams splitting up anyway? Everyone has to wait for them to come back from making a cup of coffee or suffer the penalty?

Say someone does have to leave for a valid reason after being a stellar teammate for a few missions - would it be polite for the leader to hand them the star first so they dont get penalised? If they do, who gets the star back again? Not necessarily the old leader, is it? Isnt it the player at the top of the list?

If a team leader wants to hang on to their members, they can make the team fun and productive. This penalty seems very artificial, and gives the team leader some kind of authority they dont need to have.