Miss Chief

Right, you want some debuff Def in irradiate, I think I have mine 1 rech 1 acc, 2 debuff Def and 2x damage. With Fulcrum shift you can do some impressive DoT.

The use of increase density as a damage mitigation tool is debatable IMO, the duration is just too short to make it of any real use IMO. better as a mez removal or anti KB tool.

Power Build up is still bugged with transfusion (sometimes it doesn't give the boost on the heal). Once you have tactics (which I'd take earlier, once you have transference) you can cut back on the acc's and swap a few end redux in there for your staminaless build. You won't need transference, Stamina and have a big team giving you Vigilance.

Aim has debatable use as well as it's duration is so short. once you have intertial reduction you could even consider dropping a travel power all together, although I think I still have fly and hover.

Well, Dark can be Good as Kin is the very definition of an 'In Melee' Defender set, and Dark has an accuracy debuff which should hopefulyl mean you get his less. Energy is less useful as most of the attacks do knockback so often you throw your target outside the ideal range for your Siphon Power or Fulcrum Shift. Might be good if you want a challenge! I've never really done Psi but 'normal' critters are usually quite prone to it but it's next to useless against robots and the undead. Rad is useful because everything has a -defence secondary effect which makes your Kin stuff hit better as pretty much everything has a to-hit roll when you use it. You can also do quite impressive spike damage and DoT with Fulcrum shift and the AoE's as well.

I'm biased having a Kin/Rad but I'd say they can all work well with the possible exception of Energy.

Isn't that then just as borked as Defiance for blasters currently is now? The problem with Defiance is that you can easily go from 50% health and no Defiance to dead and no defiance. That's one of the problems people say it has, it's great in the lower levels but at higher levels it's possible to be 2 shotted by bosses from about lvl 15 upwards if youre fighting +2's and one shotted not far upwards from that.

You know I haven't even looked into HO's on any of my toons with any seriousness. Perhaps I shall. if I could drop an Acc I could take one of those HO's.

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Any character, no matter of which AT, will not get their missions done in teams unless they take action to do so. Either suggest to the team leader that you have a nice mission close by, stay in the team until YOU get the star, or start your own team.

Or you could make a build that doesn't suck solo.

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Problem with defenders is alot of the time you either end up with an offender or a pure team build. Finding asomething in between can be very difficult indeed sometimes. I think the only real offender possibilities are Kin, Rad primary, Dark primary and possibly Storm. Everything else is really geared towards team based gameplay. Having said that my Kin/Rad has a nice halfway house I think, but it could easily go further one way or the other. Less damage, more def debuff in irradiate for example.

Energy blade, as long as they don't rip of ANY animations from BS or katana and I'd be there in a flash. Also Dual blades could be fun. Perhaps dual energy blades?

One of each would be ace. I've tried Katana, have a claws slowly levelling up, a Broadsword at lvl 50 and a DM lvl 50 Brute. Spines and me never got along, although I was told it's very much a late blossomer.

SR I tried in beta and again with Spines, could say I've never given it a proper chance I suppose but I've also got an Energy Aura brute and I'd imagine they're broadly similar. Invuln I've tried and loved, Regen just didn't work for me at all and my Scrapper I'm levelling up is /DA.

I have purposely saved 2 slots on Defiant just for a new scrapper primary that'll hopefully come in issue 11.

Some Defenders can solo OK, my trick arrow/pointy sticks can against certain mob types, but if something like oil slick not lighting happens (and it seems better since i10, just not completely fixed) then I'm pretty much screwed as that's half my damage gone straight away. my Kin/Rad can also solo OK on heroic and the one above that. Anything higher and she's dead meat though.

I suppose they had to give defenders something, and my TA defender makes full use of Vigilance by not having stamina. I notice it on my kin/rad as well, although not as much due to transference. my TA hardly has an end redux anywhere wlthough she does now have conserve power for those Emp Arrow moments.

So, to throw this open, give some ideas for a better Defender inherent? It has to be something that can be done within the game at the moment, and something that won't take hours upon hours to implement. A bit like the Defiance discussion that's gone on recently for blasters.

Yes, it has weaknesses, and those weaknesses can't be counteracted by, say, aid self like a SR can, but it has IMO the best tier 38 power (and the worst crash for it's troubles too), but for sheer survivability among most mob types I'd put my Invuln up against any other scrapper primary.

There's been times when I'm the only one standing with other scrappers in the team, and have come out the other side still standing. There's also been times when I've been the first one down mind you. Siege's map comes to mind.

Just as an example,I was ina team earlier with 4 controllers, 3 defenders and a single solitary scrapper. man we were rolling through maria jenkins AV arc like it wasn't there. The number of debuffs, heals, controls, buffs and just plain chaos was a sight to behold. it was like 'another mob, wham, bang, pow, bang, pop, fizz, next mob.' it was brilliant!

Well, you didn only post it 1 day before saying you were going to run it.

IMO it's because when teams are struggling, or people are making up a team you can usually make up for a lack of damage with a Kin, or make up for a lack of control with debuffs etc. Defenders are in high demand because they're THE team AT, I've been in teams with 4 or more defenders and they just absolutely steamroller'd missions, with no tanks, no scrappers, just blasters, controllers and 4 defenders.

/agreed with maelwys.

Invuln is great, with Dull pain and Siphon Life it should be quite survivable, and it is very much a late developer. basially it takes you until you get Invinciblity well slotted to be really survivable.

Guys, you're all avoided the plainly obvious answer to his question. Broadsword!

(Apart from Satanic_Flash, who has seen the light)

it's plainly obvious. Kinetics+any brute.

if anyone were to get one, now is the time. With the dollar being so weak against the dollar you're getting almost $2 for your £. now is the time to buy!

This is true, but the general feeling I think is new stuff>Rejigging old stuff.

Fortitude is such a great buff, you really should have something else in there, recharges or something.

Why do you have stealth and a celerity stealth in Super Speed as well? Surely it's not too much trouble to toggle SS on and off again if you need the stealth? Remember it lasts for 120 seconds after you've turned off SS.

The End mods in Recovery aura are largely redundant. it's pretty good by itself and doesn't really need them IMO.

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Thanks to Cognito, who yelled many times "Shields are down" i felt i was making a big difference in team.


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Hey I didn't shout!

Panicked, maybe!

Well hope I didn't offend. Its just that people underestimate how awesome FF shields are. And if you noticed on that TF, my Ice tanks HP hardly blipped thanks to your sheilds - and started to plummet when the shields dropped. Hence the reminders!

I'd far rather not be hit at all than get pounded and need healing!

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Hey i am happy that you did that. And it wasn't harsh it's kinda nice "shields are down, shields pls" way. For the fist time i felt i was making a difference in the battle. Maybe i rarely thanks for heals, rezs or teleports but i always thank for bubbles, AM and other usual stuff. Because especially new players must know that by using these powers making a difference. And i tend to invite non healing defenders into teams first. Everybody loves Empaths, Kinetics and Radiation defenders so they find teams really easy. Non-healing bubblers, tricksters and stormers often have a hard time to find teams, especially in low levels in the Hollows.

So here's a little tip for non healing defenders, especially new ones. Develop your leadership ability and form your own teams.

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Herostats is a wonderful thing for a Bubbler to use because it times the buffs you apply to everyone, then changes from green to yellow to red before the buff runs out. It's also magic for Unstoppable/Elude/Overload/any sort of power with a 'crash' so you can time it to perfection. I've even managed to time an Energy drain perfectly so all my toggles didn't drop on my /EA brute after Overload ran out

I have noticed though that herostats seems to be out by a few seconds on some powers recently. not sure if it's the lag cos of the invasion or not though.

And not one single sign of Kinetics anywhere in that post! Shame on you!

It is a Scrapper problem at the moment IMO. Basically, Spines and DM apart all the scrapper primaries do lethal damage, which is highly resisted in the later game. Dark melee does mainly Smashing damage, negative energy isn't that widely resisted, but the component is relatively low compared to the smashing part. Spines does some toxic damage, but again it's relatively low.

I'd love to see a Scrapper set that does 100% of some other damage type, especially Energy, Fire or Cold. Hopefully the Energy blade choice on thepowerset poll will come true. I can't help but think that Dual energy blades would rock though

It certainly does, it's like painting a target around someone and saying 'kill this person first'. Even setting a bind to say that such a person is the anchor, please kill this person last' doesn't help.

What I have found is that if you press tab, the first person to come up in a mob is usually the same for everyone, the game appears to have a set 'order', so pressing tab a few times can soemtimes stop the anchor from dying immediately.

There's a bit of confusion about anchors IMO, do you put it on the boss to reduce his/her damage potential, knowing that the boss will probably be the first to go down, or do you put it on a minion, knowing they might go down easily? perhaps an Lt instead?

Maneouvers is pretty crappy these days, i think 3 slotted with SO's it gives a wholly naff 4% extra defence or something equally rubbish. Yes, 4% to a SR scrapper or an ice tank will be handy. To anyone else not running some sort of defence it'll be nigh on useless. most people go for Assault (straight 10% Damage buff) and then tactics, which 3 slotted with to-hit gives about an extra SO's worth of accuracy. Assault only needs end redux too so you can save on 3 extra slots.

With Stamina and Acc metab you should be fine for end.