Stormwind_Rider

I think in the patch notes where it refers to a "chance to work" .... replace that with a "chance to hit". That may help you with your confusion.

Thus ranged/AE defense will apply against the initial accuracy check for the Taunt to land. AE for AE Taunts, such as Tanker Taunt and Provoke, Ranged for ST Taunts, like Scrapper Taunt and Challenge.

I believe Taunt resistance shortens the duration of Taunt, like other mez resistance (not protection).

In the case of gauntlet, defense will not apply against punchvoke, because defense already applies against the attack in the first place. If the attack already landed, then defense can't do anything. From there, it's just a chance that you'll get taunted as a result of being hit, with Taunt Resistance applying normally.

I do have a slight problem with your comment on Increase Density. If you get into the level 30s, and especially in the 40s, mezzing attacks become extremely common. ID will break your teammates out of them and free them as well, which can be invaluable for keeping fellow squishies alive. So if anything, this power becomes MORE useful as you get higher in level.

A little extra resistance never hurt either.

My Merc/Traps is up to 36, and while everyone has their own playstyle, I would still /strongly/ recommend considering the Medicine pool.

Beyond the utility of healing your pets (3 Heal SOs will bring a Tier 1 soldier almost to full), Aid Other is also incredibly useful for healing /teammates/. Your Medic may heal your own soldiers (infrequently, and also not for very much, since his heal is based on /his/ hp, and he has few), but he will not heal your teammates. Since you are not generally fighting much, healing your teammates for a fairly appreciable amount is never a waste of time. I have saved more than one teammate with Aid Other.

Aid Self is also good to have, it's saved my bacon a few times, and it never hurts to be able to heal yourself. 2 interrupt reducers and it's next to impossible to interrupt.

/traps corruptors and /traps MMs also get Trip Mines too.

One useful trick to keep mobs from running over your mines is to place them at a corner. Aggro the enemies, then run around the corner. The enemies will follow you, then when they round the corner, they'll stop to shoot at you, and then BOOM.

I'm afraid the recent nerf just went too damn far. I hadn't played my TA/A defender since before that nerf, and I went and played him again today. He's only level 7, but I'd gone primarily for the TA powers available to me (skipping entangling arrow... duh), so I have Flash, Glue, Ice.

And I don't do anything anymore.

Admittedly, at level 7, with only TOs, I'm not going to be terribly effective with any set... but I don't do *anything* anymore.

Ice Arrow Holds... great.. for a few seconds (two Hold TOs). Then they break out, and the icon's not even at half size. They resume hitting me and/or allies.

Glue Arrow is perfectly fine.... when I use it every third or fourth fight. What about all the ones in between? .. nada.

Flash Arrow recharges enough I can use it once or twice a fight... except I haven't noticed any real effect from the -acc so far, and the animation takes FOREVER.

My debuffs, for a completely debuff set... are for the most part ineffectual. I bring almost nothing to a team. Yes, I'm low level, but even at low level I should have *some* effectiveness. Everything I can do has barely any effect.

I MUCH rather prefer that TA would be kept a completely debuff set. No buff or healing crap. It makes it unique. But if it's going to be a debuff set, make it good at it.. at all levels. When you're balancing for SOs and high level play, don't forget that people still have to *get* there. When another set (Dark Miasma) as pointed out above is better at debuffing with just two powers over a debuff-centric set, something's gotta be done.

My TA/A defender is up to level 7 and has Ice Arrow, Glue Arrow, and Flash Arrow. Entangling Arrow I skipped because.. hm.. hold.. or immobilize? ... Hold. And now that Entangling has lost the -recharge, there's even less reason to take it, since Ice Arrow still includes a -speed and -recharge component that will work on things you can't Hold in one shot (like Bosses).

I think the newly increased recharge timers are also pretty damn hefty. Would it be possible just to prevent powers from the same character stacking instead?

Overall, I like the set. You've already got one set that's completely on the Buff end of the Buff/Debuff spectrum (Empathy), and now TA is completely Debuff. It's a nice variance.

However, I also am concerned about the effectiveness of an all Debuff defender compared to some of the other sets. Buff sets are always useful regardless of the level of the enemy. However, a Debuff set loses effectiveness as you begin fighting higher level enemies, since the debuffs won't last as long, and you have to make ToHit rolls for some of TA's debuffs (like Flash Arrow). I'd like to see some high level TA testing before you really start nerfing the set (I volunteer! Ooh ooh! Me! *waves his hand vigorously*).

Radiant Strike most definitely does not copy Bone Smasher. That's the Jab (from super-strength) or Boxing (from fighting) animation.

Also, yeah, the Energy Flight has that speed suppression, not -acc anymore, so you'll want to change that.

I'm pretty sure the resists on the Fire/Cold and Energy/Negative shields is base 27% too.

Nice work, though.

I've heard some good things about Ignite, and immob/holding enemies in the patch is certainly viable.. but I just tend to kill enemies far too fast with Flamethrower and Full Auto to even really need to worry about getting a bunch of enemies into a patch to kill them.

Burst is a *defense* debuff, not resistance. You should be hitting more often, not doing more damage.

I did recently respec out sniper rifle for slug, and I'm definitely liking it. Not having to stand still for 4 seconds for the aiming time is doing a lot for my combat mobility and dynamics. And I can still kill minions with a burst/slug combo, so I'm not missing too much. At the earlier levels though, Sniper Rifle was definitely helpful for the sheer damage it did, but now, I'm thinking Slug is a good replacement by level 30 or so.

Thunder Strike is a good "get away from me!" power. Plus, the damage is pretty good once you've got it slotted. At the very least, you can take it over Lightning Clap if you were considering that. You will crush one enemy with significant damage and throw the rest away from you. Before you drop the power, test it with slots first. By now, many of your attacks are 4-5 slotted, with multiple damage SOs, and a new power just can't compete, damage-wise, until you get some SOs in it. Admittedly, TS is still much less endurance-efficient than say, Havok Punch... but it's still pretty good damage, and it looks *cool*.

Whirlwind eliminating animations has been known for a little while now. It's a really good way to get around the long animation of say, Full Auto and allowing you to move away (can't attack, the power is still running however). I don't do it because it just smacks of exploiting, heh.

LRM's scatter is away from you. Which is actually what M30's scatter is. It's not away from point of impact, it's away from caster. The damage is pretty good, and the range is definitely regular snipe range (120' I believe). With enough damage slots and Build Up, you will indeed one-shot a large bunch of 0/+1s. The radius of the effect is pretty surprising too.

Sometimes you can't find a team and Beanbag is great for disabling lieutenants. Even in a team, Beanbag is useful if your AEs draw you aggro, you can whack a lieutenant with it and run away. Plus it's just fun.

Munitions Mastery was just a thematic recommendation. You've already got an AR. It just seemed to fit best.

As for Sleep Grenade.. I've used this power a fair amount, and it's just not useful. It does an extremely minor amount of damage, and that's worse than no damage at all. The accuracy is pretty poor, and anyone you miss will be aggro'd because you dealt damage to his buddies.

As for sniper rifle vs. slug... I hadn't really considered that. My first blaster was Elec, and his snipe was just another attack that I had to take. I didn't get a choice in what attacks I wanted, heh. Since my AR/Elec spends a lot of time at least somewhat close to the combat (Flamethrower/Buckshot/FA cones) Slug is probably a better idea than Sniper Rifle after a while. I think I might use a respec for that.

How about, during an attack, offline SG members are in inaccessible rooms going through fighting motions? Y'know, like you can look through glass into the rec room and see an offline SG-mate firing blasts at oncoming waves of NPC villains. You can see them through the glass, but you can't interact. They're doing okay, you've got your own battle to fight. They don't actually take or deal any damage and don't affect the battle in any way, but you can still see them "participating" in fight, but not being a factor since they're not logged in.

The AR/Elec Guide to Ultimate Destruction

Sounds fancy, eh?

The AR/Elec Guide to Ultimate Destruction

This guide is written for those of you who like to do DAMAGE... and lots of it. This guide will follow a certain philosophy regarding the two powersets. The AR set is primarily used for AE damage, while the melee attacks from Electric Manipulation are your strong single target attacks.

Level 1: Burst or Slug, Electric Fence
Burst OR Slug will be your main single-target attack from AR. I'd say take one or the other, and here's why. For the most part, you will be using AE attacks to deal with your enemies. This attack will be used on the remaining survivor or two while you close in. Your melee attacks do far more damage than either of these attacks. I prefer Burst because of the slight -def secondary ability, and it recharges faster than Slug, and costs less end. Eventually you'll want 5 or 6 slots in this power.

Slotting: 1acc, the rest dmg.

Electric Fence... you're required to take. It actually does moderate damage, surprisingly enough. It's a single target Immobilize. You can use it as a little extra Single Target damage every now and then. I wouldn't slot it though.

Slotting: 1acc

Level 2 and 4: Buckshot and Charged Brawl, either one at either level

Buckshot is your first AE attack. It does more damage than M30, and the cone meshes fairly well with Flamethrower. Before you get Full Auto, buckshot is great used after a flamethrower. Many of the people charging towards you after you set them on fire will be blown backwards by your buckshot. I also occasionally use this against a single target to finish them off, because the endurance cost isn't bad. 5 or 6 slots in here.

Slotting: 1acc, the rest dmg.

Charged Brawl is a rather powerful melee attack, more useful in the early levels, but still sees use later in the game. In the early game, I found this attack, unslotted, was doing more damage than Slug with 3 Training: Damage enhancements. So it will definitely help you take down lieutenants and bosses in the early game fairly rapidly. Unfortunately, as the game progresses, you won't be able to afford many slots into this.. they'll go into the other melee attack powers, but it still does a pretty good amount of damage even with only a couple slots. And it's fairly cheap on endurance. 3 or 4 slots should do it.

Slotting: 1acc, the rest dmg.

Level 6: M30 Grenade

M30 isn't a fantastic attack, but it's a good long-range attack that does AE damage. Sometimes I like to perch on high places and snipe at enemies, so I'll cycle through Burst, M30, Sniper Rifle in relative safety as my team engages in the melee. The damage is less than Buckshot however. Also, the knockback frequency is very high, so be careful when you're firing this into a group of enemies that your team is engaged. You'll probably piss them off. It is good however, when soloing. Flamethrower sets the enemies on fire, then you use Buckshot and then M30 to add some more damage, and keep your enemies on their backs. 4 or 5 slots should do it.

Slotting: I think you know by now.

Level 8: Pre-requisite for travel power

Whatever travel power you like. My AR/Elec, Function 14 is a teleporter. Recall Friend is incredibly useful, and Teleport is very fast once you reach level 22 and slot SOs. But Combat Jumping or Hover would go quite well here. If you wanted to be a Superspeeder, you could get Flurry or Hasten if you wanted. This guide is built on the assumption that you *don't* have Hasten, however. It's not necessary. By level 32, you'll have *nine* attacks.

Level 10: Havoc Punch

This power is GREAT. It does lots of damage, almost as much as sniper rifle. It's mostly smashing, and some energy damage (about 1/5). The endurance cost is moderate and the animation is fast. Eventually, 6 slots.

Slotting: The usual.

Level 12: Sniper Rifle

Long-range, high damage, interruptable sniper attack. Useful for attacking bosses and lieutenants, particularly after a Build-Up. Since it's interruptable, you need to time it properly when you're solo, but if you have a team, you ought to be able to use Sniper Rifle without much fear of being attacked. 6 slot this quickly.

Slotting: Sniper Rifle has an inherent accuracy bonus. You could 6-slot damage. However, I felt that it didn't seem to be enough, so I slotted 1 Acc into it. Try it with all damage first, and if you feel it's missing too much, put in 1 Acc.

Level 14: Travel Power

Whatever you opened up at level 8. If it's Teleport, slot 1 end rdx, 1 range, and you should be good.

Level 16-24: Somewhere in this range, get five powers. Build Up, Flamethrower, Sprint/Hurdle, Health, Stamina.

Build Up is incredibly useful. Build Up + Flamethrower + Full Auto will annihilate all minions and lieutenants in an enemy group. Build Up + Sniper Rifle + Charged Brawl + Havoc Punch + Thunder Strike (Yes, they will all fit) will kill a boss. Slot for recharge. You will want 2 or 3 slots total in here, so it comes up more often.

Flamethrower is your main AE attack. Six-slot this rapidly for all damage. The inherent accuracy seems to be better than sniper rifle, so 6 damage ought to be enough. Especially if you use Build Up frequently before this power. I would strongly suggest getting this at level 18, since it's so awesome, but if you *really* want to get Stamina at 20, then get Flamethrower at 22.

Sprint/Hurde, Health, Stamina are self-explanatory. Endurance is good. I suppose you could get away with not getting Stamina if you slotted a *lot* of endurance cost reducers in your attacks... but I wouldn't recommend it.

Level 26: Stealth

Concealment is simply useful. You can position yourself so you can fire your AEs better, and you can sneak closer to bosses to unload melee attacks. Excellent in teams, because you're less likely to draw aggro as you move into position. If you don't want Stealth... feel free to try something else, like Ignite. Ignite is difficult to use solo, you need a team to effectively use it. There also isn't a lot of slots to spare for another attack, though.

Slotting: 1 defense buff. Don't slot endurance reduction... the endurance savings is minimal.

Level 28: Thunder Strike

Your third melee attack. This used to be worse than Havoc Punch. Issue 4 has improved it, so now it does slightly more damage than Havoc Punch, and is guaranteed to knockback everyone in front of you in melee range. The endurance cost is quite high, and the animation time is long, but it's still a useful power... plus it looks damn cool. 4-6 slots.

Slotting: The usual.

Level 30: Beanbag

A ranged disorient. NOT a damage power. Around level 30, this becomes extremely useful for soloing, because you'll start running into more difficult foes, and lieutenants and bosses tend to be mezzers. Or just painful. Beanbag can disorient a lieutenant in a single shot, taking them out of the fight for a little while, while you destroy the minions with your AEs. Then you can bring your powerful melee attacks to bear on the LT. It takes two shots to disorient a boss, and the duration isn't really long enough to stack with any effectiveness.

Slotting: 1 acc.

Level 32: Full Auto

A fantastic power. Six-slot this as soon as you can (that is, all the level 33 slots, and 2 slots from level 34). The damage is amazing, and you can get a lot of people if you position yourself right. It's a narrow cone, but with Stealth, you can get good positioning to catch the most people possible. Be aware that using this power will root you in place for a few seconds while you're firing, unable to move or use inspirations. Flamethrower and Full Auto will be your primary method of attacking groups of enemies.

Slotting: DAMAGE! ALL OF IT!

Level 35: Power Sink

With the amazing efficiency you get out of your AE attacks, you actually shouldn't have much problem with endurance. However, in large fights, or when fighting enemies higher level than yourself, you may dip low. Power Sink is an AUTO-HIT power that drains endurance from foes and gives it to you. 3-4 enemies is enough to top you off. It recharges often enough. You shouldn't need to use it often anyways. 1 or 2 slots is fine.

Slotting: Rechargers.

Level 38: Shocking Grasp

Melee range hold. Does moderate damage, but is best used as a Hold. Since it's Magnitude 3, it will hold a minion or lieutenant in a single hit, but NOT a boss. Slotting for this is up to you. If you want to use it primarily as a Hold, just add two or three slots to it. If you want some damage too, six-slot it.

Slotting: 1 acc, 2-3 Hold duration, the rest damage.

Epic Power Pools

These are up to you really. I feel Munitions is the best fit for this kind of blaster, since there is no elec pool. Something with a Hold power is best, so you can hit a boss with it, then Shocking Grasp the boss, and he'll be held.

Assuming you get Munitions...

Level 41: Cryo Freeze Ray

Ranged Hold. Minimal cold damage. Can stack with Shocking Grasp to hold a boss. Should get 2 or 3 slots.

Slotting: 1 acc, 2 Hold duration, maybe 1 recharge if you want.

Level 44: Body Armor

I might have said Sleep Grenade at one point.. but no. Sleep Grenade might be useful for holding off additional enemy groups, or sleeping ranged attackers while your team deals with melee fighters.. but the sleep duration is short, and the accuracy is crap. I've used it. Get Body Armor. The damage reduction you get isn't a lot, but it costs you zero endurance, and the 22% Smashing/Lethal reduction you get when six-slotted may save your life.

Level 47: LRM

High damage, AE snipe attack. Long recharge, but fun. Use with Build-Up. Six-slot.

Slotting: 4-5 damage, the rest rechargers.

Level 49: Up to you, really. Whatever floats your boat, heh. I'm getting Combat Jumping.

General combat advice

Try to find a team. This guide is low on defensive abilities (well... except for killing everyone before they kill you.. but all blasters try to do that). In a team, you can most effectively use your AE abilities to kill off large groups of enemies that will appear when you're in a large team.

From level 20-34 or so, soloing will be very dangerous. Enemies do a bit more damage, and flamethrower's DoT is somewhat slow. You may be killed before your enemies burn to death. Once you get Full Auto, your survivability will increase drastically.

Overall, you want to use Flamethrower + Full Auto to kill enemy groups. Throw in Build-Up ahead of time if they're higher level than you. Sniper Rifle, Burst, and your melee attacks will finish off stragglers. Use Buckshot and M30 in conjunction with Flamethrower if Full Auto has not recharged yet when you encounter another enemy group. Also use Buckshot and M30 to keep enemies away from you.

Regarding Lightning Clap: I got this at level 30, then respecced into Beanbag. Very rarely did a large number of enemies survive my AE attacks to close into melee range with me. Usually it's just 1, maybe 2 survivors. They get killed with melee attacks. I never found a need to knockback a horde of enemies away from me. The disorient chance is *very* low. Just get beanbag.

Regarding Lightning Field: Damage-wise, it's not worth it. Anything in melee range of you is going to get annihilated by your melee attacks. And your Assault-Rifle AE attacks are far superior. You could try to be a endurance drainer, if you six-slotted power sink for endurance drain, then slotted Lightning Field for endurance drain as well. But this Guide is built for maximum damage.

Regarding Hasten: It's not necessary for this build. You have a wide variety of attacks to draw from, you'll never be short on attacks to use. Full Auto recharges in only 25 seconds.

If you're *still* reading this, here's my build on Function 14.

Exported from version 1.5A of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh

Archetype: Blaster
Primary Powers - Ranged : Assault Rifle
Secondary Powers - Support : Electricity Manipulation

01 : Electric Fence acc(01)
01 : Burst acc(01) dam(3) dam(5) dam(9) dam(17) dam(36)
02 : Buck Shot acc(02) dam(3) dam(5) dam(9) dam(27) dam(36)
04 : Charged Brawl acc(04) dam(7) dam(31) dam(50)
06 : M30 Grenade acc(06) dam(7) dam(15) dam(17) dam(37)
08 : Recall Friend inttim(08)
10 : Havok Punch acc(10) dam(11) dam(11) dam(23) dam(34) dam(40)
12 : Sniper Rifle acc(12) dam(13) dam(13) dam(15) dam(25) dam(31)
14 : Teleport endred(14) rng(21)
16 : Build Up recred(16) recred(36) recred(46)
18 : Flamethrower dam(18) dam(19) dam(19) dam(21) dam(23) dam(31)
20 : Swift runspd(20)
22 : Health hel(22)
24 : Stamina endrec(24) endrec(25) endrec(27) endrec(37) endrec(43)
26 : Stealth defbuf(26)
28 : Thunder Strike acc(28) dam(29) dam(29) dam(39) dam(43)
30 : Bean Bag acc(30)
32 : Full Auto dam(32) dam(33) dam(33) dam(33) dam(34) dam(34)
35 : Power Sink recred(35) recred(37)
38 : Shocking Grasp acc(38) hlddur(39) hlddur(39) dam(40) dam(40) dam(43)
41 : Cryo Freeze Ray acc(41) hlddur(42) hlddur(42) recred(42)
44 : Body Armor damres(44) damres(45) damres(45) damres(45) damres(46) damres(46)
47 : LRM Missile acc(47) dam(48) dam(48) dam(48) dam(50) recred(50)
49 : Combat Jumping defbuf(49)

-------------------------------------------

01 : Brawl Empty(01)
01 : Sprint Empty(01)
02 : Rest Empty(02)

Targeting Drone is an awful power for costume changing. All that happens is that a little floaty drone appears around you. That's it. No flashy graphic.

One thing wrong with your calculations, Havok.

Power pool powers that provide defense (Hasten and Hover in this case) do *not* provide +def against AE attacks. It's melee/ranged only.

I believe that was said by Geko somewhere, and I'm sure someone else can back me up on that one.

well, if you didn't want to burn two powers before getting phase shift, and you were planning on getting 2 powers from that APP already anyways.

Or if you ran out of power pools to take Stealth. Easily doable, if you're like me and have Fly, Speed, Fitness, Teleport(for Recall Friend). At one point I had the Medicine pool until I respecced for Recall Friend, too. Not everyone wants the Stealth powers.

Awesome guide. However, there's one other Confuse power you left out.

Arctic Air.

I was reading through this and thinking... "Man, I wish I had kept my ill controller to play with deceive more... all I have is this crappy low-level ice controller... with... AA.. Hmm..."

He's only level 6 at the moment, but I'm playing him as a part of a themed trio of characters (Ice tanker, controller, blaster. Winter Bastion, Winter Magus (me), and Winter Rage, look for us on Virtue! :P). I'm getting AA at level 10 and plan to eventually six-slot it, four for Confuse. Any ice controllers with AA that have some tips and tactics on it?

Or maybe you could go do some research on that and include in your guide so I don't have to work on it! :P