Psiphon

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SR tends to die more often to just plain bad rolls than actual DefDebuffs resulting in gimped defense numbers, what with having 95% DefDebuff resistance.

I dare say any defense powerset would be more fun than SR though, assuming both are softcapped, because SR is pretty much -only- defense (the joke resistance from passives at low HP doesn't count, really, and the +recharge doesn't help survivability much unless you have a spammable mez), while other powersets have other nice tricks up their sleeves, such as Shield Charge.

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Hi Col,

I was just wondering why the hate for SR?

I've only recently started playing villains again since an aborted attempt to get into CoV at launch but I've got good experience from playing Scrappers blue side.

I've found SR to be a decent Secondary and holds up well against other Secondaries even at the lower levels where its supposedly a bit gimp.
At the higher levels it's the secondary of choice for soloing AV's and is probably the most powerful secondary if your going to throw inf at it.

From a play perspective it's one of the most passive secondaries but that just allows you to concentrate on attacking which plays to the strengths of a Brute.

I've played most Secondaries up to a reasonable level so I feel that I'm unbiased in my opinion.
The "toggle and forget" or "all or nothing" of defense might not be to everyones taste but that doesn't make it less fun or inferior, it's just different.

As I said at the start just wondering why the hate for SR?

Thanks guys, I'll give it another go.

Thanks; yeah I meant the zones.

Creating a hero always puts a smile on my face - appearing in Atlas all bright and shiny.

Villain side just made me feel depressed - all dark and gloomy.

I was street sweeping most of the time villain side, maybe I need to change tact and just run missions, limiting my exposure to the zones themselves.

I've been trying to get into villains since they became available and I'm really struggling - it's not the ATs themselves its the maps they are so damn miserable.

I've never taken a villain past 10 for this reason - so my question is do they become a bit brighter or are all of them depressing war zones?

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I would also do my very best to get Hasten in the build somewhere to help get Phantom Army up more often, its a great power.

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This!

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I would also do my very best to get Hasten in the build somewhere to help get Phantom Army up more often, its a great power.

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This!

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I would also do my very best to get Hasten in the build somewhere to help get Phantom Army up more often, its a great power.

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And this!

If there's one pool power that Illusion needs it's Hasten. While PA are out you're a Demi-God when they're not....hhhmmmm not so.

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Does Illusion has a sleep power??? As far as i know its power tree is; Single Target Attack, Hold, Confuse, AoE Hold, Invisibility, Team Invisibility, Pets, Fear, Pet.

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Nope no sleep in Illusion apart from the small component part in Blind.

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Unless you feel the need to chuck out a Spectral Terror or two

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You can only have one Spooky out at a time, dropping a second removes the first.

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They can take the proc in the Purple pet set. It just has no effect on them. Same for the global buffs. Although you could slot those inn PA to have the buff affect the Phant. It's not recomended though, as you will want to use all available slots for the PA.

You will want to slot for recharge firstly, so you can have them out as much as possible, then damage and accuracy. Frankenslotting or HOs are recomended.

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Are you sure that this is the case, I've got it in my PA although I've not checked the numbers - just assumed that it works.

Tal'N ran a test of it in PA and monitored the numbers a while ago as shown, has something changed since then?

PA with PROC

I'll check tonight if I go on.

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/Kin: PA is unbuffable, and the phant tends to hang back and miss out of some of the kin buffs. It doesn't matter if you are teamed of course, but for this reason debuff sets will perform better solo with Ill.


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IMO this isn't entirely true.

Kin will allow you to have the PA out more often, also the play style is differant to Rad and Storm.

Kin benefits from a more agressive Scraptroller type play than the other 2; SS and SP means that you can deal a decent amount of damage up close and Transfuaion allows for a good heal back as required.
Phantasm can be slotted with a "Force Feedback chance for recharge" - when this fire's he goes into melee, so is buffable with FS and can be healed with Transfusion.

Late game with the Earth Epic my Ill/Kin can play in melee with perma PA and a buffable Phantasm, transfusion healing me for over 400hp every few seconds while I deal damage using FS'd Fissure and Siesmic Smash.

I can clear 8 man invicible and unyielding spawns in good time this way.

Debuff sets would be better for AV's etc but for normal misions I'd bet on an Ill/Kin clearing a mission and street sweeping quicker than either of the other 2.

In my opinion it's more about playstyle, if you want to stay back and drop the pets while you increase their damage through debuffs go /Rad or /Storm if you prefer to do the damage yourself (Scraptroller) while the pets supplement your damage and keep you safe go /Kin.

All are effective and all good fun in their own way.

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Mind control is fantastic, the lack of a pet doesn't really hit it cause of mass confusion and terrify. Played a mind/kin and wound up hating Kin but loving mind. I'd imagine it would be fairly good at farming actually too. Good control and good damage in the set, shame the sleep isn't a stun or an imob instead though that's the way I'd improve the set

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I agree with this.

One thing that I will add though is that Mind is probably the hardest set to play well.

The sleeps can be broken so you'll need to choose the targets wisely and Telekinesis takes some getting used to. In the right hands it's great, in the wrong hands it can mean trips to the hospital due to aggroing multiple groups.

It would be amusing to go into a map with 2 Fire Controllers - 1 each end of a corridor and play ping-pong with the mobs in the middle.

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I have been reading guides to Fire/Kin on the US forums and they all seem to say that Bonfire is a bad power. However looking at it in mids it is quite a big AoE that does a lot of damage (286 slotted, 639 slotted + fulcrum shift) so to me it seems almost unmissable.

What is everyones experience of the power? Is mids wrong?

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Just tried it in Brickstown and the damage is awful!

Tried it on a couple of even con Crey Minions with Cages for the -KB and containment - it barely scratched them.
There were a few ticks of of 3 damage and they were very slow.

So don't get it for the damage - but it is amusing to use and I'm sure will be useful under certain circumstances.

Your post reminded me of this tread on the US boards where some one did the RWZ challenge with a ranged High Defense Blaster - might be worth a look.

High Defense Blaster

Oh also ice bolt gets a weird containment damage. It's damage is better than fire and earth single target ranged attacks i guess. I get numbers like this; 100, 46, 58. No never checked on Combat tab.

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Just had a look on Mids:
Fire Blast 77.1
Ice Blast 103.4
Hurl Boulder 100.3

So Ice does more damage and Cold damage being less resisted than Smashing could explain the difference between IB and HB.

I've only recently picked up Bonfire so I won't comment too much on it other than too say that it's harder too use than say Ice Slick as its KB not KD so you'll need to spam Cages to keep them on it.
I've not checked Mids for the damage.

Char is a hold so it's better too get than Ring of Fire which is an immob so will have limited damage mitigation.
Char will stack with itself and the recharge is quite quick so it's easy to do.
It can also Critical to one shot hold a Boss.
It will also stack with Cinders.

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You misunderstood me, I'm not saying that Vigilance gives any uberness at all - what I'm saying is that a buff that also applied when teamed would take all Defender teams (Rad/ in particular) to astronomical levels.

[/ QUOTE ]Any half-decent all-defender team is going to have nearly capped endurance constantly, so making vigilance also give a boost based on your own HP would have absolutely no effect on them.

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I seem to be getting misquoted and misunderstood based on my earlier suggestion - I've just reread it to make sure I hadn't accidentally written it in double Dutch or bulls*** - it does happen occasionally.

My suggestion was to replace Vigilance with something called Focus:

Which would offer nothing to a Defender on a team as I feel that they're dandy as they are - they fulfill their function well.

Solo however I think that they need a buff and this is where the new inherent would come into play by doing this:

When out of a team (solo) the Defender is able to Focus his Primary powers on himself more effectively rather than diffuse them over the team and as such all his self effecting powers have a boost and an Endurance reduction.

For example on a a Rad/ - AM has a % boost to Damage End etc, RI % boost and so on.
FF/ Dispersion bubble has a defense increase.

As I said this would allow better soloing but prevent Defender teams making use of the additional buffs (damage or otherwise) for stacking.

So nothing to do with Vigilance and capped Endurance while in a team.

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As the boost is only applied when solo it would also stop all Defender teams self stacking for even more uberness than they currently do.


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My experience of all (and virtually all) defender teams suggests that vigilance is even less use there than it is in PuGs/mixed teams. It certainly doesn't seem to be their inherent that grants them 'uberness'.

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You misunderstood me, I'm not saying that Vigilance gives any uberness at all - what I'm saying is that a buff that also applied when teamed would take all Defender teams (Rad/ in particular) to astronomical levels.

Based on my experience of playing Defenders I've found:

On teams Defenders are fine in general, they serve their purpose well and I've never found Vigilance particularly useful.

Solo it's a different story, the damage is generally too low and dependent on the Defender combo, mitigation not as good as it could be.
Endurance becomes a problem also as you spam attacks while running toggles etc to mitigate incoming damage.

My idea to help resolve the issue would be to give Defenders an inherent called Focus.
This means that in a team the Defender operates as is - minus the vigilance Endurance reward.

When out of a team he is able to Focus his Primary powers on himself more effectively rather than diffuse them over the team and as such all his self effecting powers have a boost and an Endurance reduction.
For example on a a Rad/ - AM has a % boost to Damage End etc, RI % boost and so on.
FF/ Dispersion bubble has a defence increase.

The powers still function as before and some Defenders will still solo better than others but all should solo better with Focus than Vigilance.
As the boost is only applied when solo it would also stop all Defender teams self stacking for even more uberness than they currently do.

That's my two pennies worth anyway.

Thanks for that..........oh and happy birthday

Any idea when this is going to be fixed, I expected it in the last patch?
It's so annoying - far and away my biggest gripe at the moment.

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If you want a challenge, make DB/SR. Entirely workable and a bit unusual.


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One of the most successful AV soloers in CoH is Shred Monkey a DB/SR - he's got an expensive high recharge build though.


Shred Monkey

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I count it as a jewel as I love the power but a /kin can manage quite easily without it. Fulcrum Shift and Transference are the real jewels, which sadly it seems that Knightly hasn't yet experienced.

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I think that you underestimate the power and benefit of Siphon Speed; Fulcrum Shift and Transference are good but they augment only damage and End - as good as that is.

Siphon Speed allows you to:

1 Skip a travel power.
2 Vastly Boost damage by increasing the recharge on Siphon Power, FS and all of your attacks including Epics.
3 Increase control by boosting the recharge of all your control powers including ST for stacking on bosses.
4 Allows you to perma some powers without an extortionately expensive all purple build (as an Ill/Kin you'll have perma PA on a (relatively) reasonable budget).
5 Increased recharge on Transference for even more End.
6 Increased survivability due to recharge on Transfusion.

Personally I wouldn't run a kin without Siphon Speed.

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Thanks for the advice mates but Hover/Siphon Speed thing didn't work out like i thought it would. So I deleted that version of Knightly Defender. Also decided to never try Kinetics again. This is my 3rd one, deleted other two by the very same reason, Siphon Speed and it's movement speed boost.

Still trying to find a set/AT to create Knightly Defender again. Tried many FF/Psi's, some Tanks, Scrappers, Controllers and other Defenders. I think this will be my dilemma for a long time.

So you will see many KD's on Atlas Park until i find a comfortable set for him, without Kinetics of course.

Again thanks for your input and patience to understand my post and trying to came up with advices and even with a build. I hope that ones help someone trying to give a Mind/Kin go.

Highest Regards,

Knightly

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You say that you've tried FF/Psy why not try Mind/FF, it can be a very potent combination.
I've posted some links below showing how it can be used to herd, apparently this allows you to clear a mish faster than a Fire/Kin - not so sure myself but take a look.

Mind/FF
Herding
Guide

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Why don't you just not pick Siphon Speed? I have found /Kin to be a wonderful set (Hitting 38 on my Ill/Kin was a revelation!) but if you can't get on with the movement speed just ignore it. Picking up Hasten and recharge set bonus' can negate the need for Siphon Speed anyway.

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You can have a Kin build without Siphon Speed but it is one of the jewels of the set and having Hasten doesn't negate the need for it.
With a bit of global recharge you can 4 stack SS for an additional 80% recharge - so yes you can get by without it but I wouldn't recommend it.

/SR seems to be the secondary of choice paired with a high ST damage primary such as Fire or Dark although other combinations do work.
The link below is to a similar question on the US boards - definately worth a read.

Soloing AV's

If it was my build I'd:
1 In Siphon Power and Siphon Speed go 2Acc, 3Rchg - especially SP it allows it to be stocked. With SO's you should be able to triple stack SS.
2 Drop a slot from health, you have one of the best heals in the game.
3 Not sure I'd take Earth Epic, I've got it on my Ill/Kin and it works great for the extra control and setting up containment but for a Mind I'm not sure that you'd get full benefit. Terrify is a cone so I'd expect you to play just in front of the mob using Mass Hypnosis, FS and Terrify for damage. Your choice though.
4 I'd probably drop ID and Recall friend and put in Maneuvers/Assault and Tactics allowing you to drop some Acc's late on.

From a Set perspective I'd slot for recharg, and yes Hasten is worth taking.

I'd also put an extra recharge in FS