Philotic Knight's Guide to Force Field Defenders
As a level 63 Force Field defender (I have a level 50 and a level 13) I feel that I have enough experience to provide some tips to other FF defenders out there. Also, if you are CONSIDERING making an FF defender, please read this guide to learn how to avoid what I see as some common mistakes. This guide may help out controllers with a Force Field secondary, but it is primarily designed to help Defenders be the best that they can be.
First I would recommend that everyone read
A Comprehensive Guide to Force Fields v3.0 by Bionexus BEFORE reading this guide. His guide is a mostly good guide to the general principles of the bubbling profession, and I will be referencing him substantially. However, I do disagree with him on some points, and this guide is meant to be an addendum/complement or possibly a second opinion on this much-overlooked set. This set will only cover PvE, since I do not PvP much. You should also read my
Combat Handbook for more tips from me on how to handle yourself in general combat. Please ignore the e-argument that occurred in the thread sometime after the guide. Someone ticked me off. =P
Powers Summary
This will be a quick refresher, since the details of the powers are listed in Bionexus' guide. The only note that I will make is that post-Issue 6 I believe the numbers he had for the power's defense bonus have been reduced by half. I could be wrong.
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Personal Force Field - Protects the user from almost all attacks, makes him almost invincible while also preventing him from using powers outside of the bubble. [*]
Deflection Shield - Protects an ally from 'normal' (smashing/lethal/melee) damage.[*]
Force Bolt - Single target knockback attack with minor damage.[*]
Insulation Shield - Protects an ally from 'weird' (Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative/Toxic/Ranged) attacks/damage.[*]
Detention Field - Single target bubble that stops an enemy from using powers outside the bubble and keeps him immobile, but also stops him from being attacked/debuffed.[*]
Dispersion Bubble - Area of Effect Defense over a pretty large area that defends against almost all types of damage.[*]
Repulsion Field - Point Blank Area of Effect Field that knocks back foes who come within melee range of you.[*]
Repulsion Bomb - Target your ally and knock back all the enemies around him towards the direction you're facing.[*]
Force Bubble - Point blank Area of Effect Field that prevents ANY enemy from entering a large area around the user. Can be resisted by some enemies.[/list]
Your Role
Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of an FF defender is NOT to be a buff-bot for other heroes. Look at the powers in the set. Only 3 of the powers (known appropriately as the "Power 3") are defense providing powers. That leaves 6 (!) powers that do NOT buff your allies, but do other things instead. Let's give a quick rundown of what all these powers do, and maybe we can see why the majority of Force Field defenders are sadly gimping themselves by not making good use of half of their powers.
We have 3 defense raising powers - Deflection and Insulation Fields, and Dispersion Bubble
We have 3 enemy positioning powers - Force Bolt, Repulsion Field, Repulsion Bomb, Force Bubble
We have 2 'untouchable' powers - Personal Force Field (keep away from ME!), Detention Field (keep everyone away from HIM!)
Most people see this set as a defense buff set and nothing more. However, looking at what these powers do, they do something far more valuable. The intended role of a Force Field defender is to defend his allies on the battlefield, using all 3 main groups of powers. We have defense to make all of our allies and ourself less squishy, we have knockback powers and a keepaway power to control the position of enemies, and we have 'untouchable' powers to protect either ourselves or our allies from danger. This is our role, to Protect and Server our teammates. Other defenders may be able to heal, or debuff, or buff in other ways, but no other type of defender is designed to be as much of a team player as the Force Field Defender. You can solo if you wish, but your home is in a team, and you can see that this is true because a large portion of our powers cannot be used on ourselves!
Strategies
Since any 'bubble-head' can tell you how to use the defense powers in the set, I will only talk briefly on them and move on to the more under-used and under-appreciated powers. It is important to note that as a defender, your primary position as stated when you INSTALLED the game is near the back of the team. You should be close enough to the action that your Dispersion Bubble can help your teammates, but you should be far enough back to not get yourself killed. If you are using a traditional combat structure, with toughies (tankers, scrappers) in the front and squishies in the back, you should be sitting right along with the blasters and controllers, or possibly between the toughies and the squishies if you want to give the toughies a bit of extra defense. It is under RARE circumstances that you should ever be back-to-back with a toughie.
As for the Deflection and Insulation Shields, there is only one way to use these, and the way to use them is obvious. I will provide you however with a tool that I consider to be very valuable, a macro! Using this macro is simply the FASTEST way to buff up your team with both shields, period. Create a directory to place the macro files in, I place mine in a directory called c:\CoH. Then create the two text files shown below:
File name: shield1.txt
g "powexec_name deflection shield$$bind_load_file c:\coh\shield2.txt"
File name: shield2.txt
g "powexec_name insulation shield$$bind_load_file c:\coh\shield1.txt"
Now go into the game and type the following line: /bind_load_file c:\coh\shield1.txt
What these files will do is make the letter G on your keyboard an insta-shielder, so that every time you press it, it will place a shield on your selected ally. Then the next time you press it, it will place the OTHER shield on the ally. The order doesn't matter, since it loops back anyways. So all you have to do to buff your team really quick is to select a teammate on the list, hit G two times in a row, wait to hear both shields apply, then click on the next teammate. You can also click the blue arrow on the right hand side of the team window to see all your teammates buffs and make sure that both shields took effect. If you wish to, you can of course edit this macro to point to a different letter, and you can put the files in any directory that you wish, as long as you change the directory listed in the macros to where you put them. Each shield lasts about 4 minutes, and you can either time this yourself, or get the great program HeroStats running to remind you of when these will wear out. You should have these on all of your allies at all times, no questions asked.
Now onto some powers that require a bit more thought.
Personal Force Field
Ah, the very first power in the Force Field set, and what I consider to be the signature power. What do force fields do? Provide defense. And what does PFF do? Provide ultimate defense. It makes you NEARLY invulnerable to almost all types of attacks (about 95%, the defense cap), and the attacks that do get through have their damage reduced by about 50%. Note that this is just a guess, and these numbers could be wrong. The point is that you are virtually invincible to even-con enemies. Higher level enemies may still be a danger, especially if they are more than 4 levels above you. As stated in Bionexus' guide, this is a great 'emergency' power, as well as a great power to use while traveling to ensure your safety. However, I do not think that these are the only uses for this power.
The DEFENDER Plan
PFF has a pretty decent recharge speed, so while it doesn't come back fast, it does come back quick enough if you want to use it to 'sit out' a bit of a battle. A good strategy here would be to have your Dispersion Field up along with the PFF, after you've buffed your teammates with Deflection/Insulation shields. Then, when you enter the battle, the tougher members of the team can handle and absorb the primary attack, while you stand ready to assist. If an ally or your entire team looks like they are in trouble, then you can instantly drop the PFF and give the team/ally the bonus that they provide. A benefit of this tactic is that since you have NOT been attacking any other mobs, all of your attacks are READY and can be fired off in a chain to hopefully destroy any dangers that an ally might be facing.
The Defender Tank
PFF has another great use that I found quite interesting, note that the power makes you invincible but not INVISIBLE. What does this mean to you? It means that while the enemy cannot hurt you, they CAN see you. This is fun for alto of laughs once in awhile, as you sit in the middle of a frustrated mob trying to defeat you. However, for combat, this quirk can be a unique asset. What it means is that you can provide, an alpha strike and hold aggro for a few seconds while your allies blast away. You can do this one of two ways. You can either turn on PFF first and run or teleport into the middle of a mob, angering them to no end, or you can use an attack power on the boss of the mob (preferably an AoE) and then instantly turn on your PFF to absorb the retaliating attack. This works especially well if you stand far back, activate your attack power when you are OUT of range, then run into range. The attack will finally activate and you can have your mouse over the PFF to turn it on instantly (assuming you move with the keyboard). Now you can't be a TRUE tank with this trick, since you can't hold aggro, but you can hold SOME of the aggro while dispersing the rest of it to the rest of your team evenly. And dispersed aggro on teammates is always better than concentrated aggro on one teammate (except tanks), because it can be handled easier. Do not attempt this trick if any of your buddies like to use alto of AoE attacks, because then THEY will most like draw the concentrated aggro right away.
Force Bolt
Read Bionexus' section on this power first. The only thing that I would add is that I disagree that you should not use this on a toughie. I would specify that you should not use this on a toughie's TARGET, so click your buddy quick and see who he is targeting, then target another enemy near him and knock him back. Remember, melee damage is USUALLY three times ranged damage, so keeping enemies away from your friends and yourself will increase your chance for survival. Also while an enemy is doing something else, like being knocked back or recovering from it, he CANNOT do anything else, like attack. See this as another form of defense! Even if it doesn't knock the enemy back, it will at least knock him DOWN, and that is almost as good.
Detention Field
Imagine that the battlefield is like a chess board. Wouldn't you like to be able to take the Queen out of the game until there are no other enemy pieces left? This is essentially what Detention Field can do for you. You can use it on an enemy to take that enemy out of the fight for a short while. I have found three general uses for this power. When solo-ing you can use it as an alpha strike to make one less enemy that you have to fight at the same time. You can also use it on a dangerous boss or Archvillain (or SAPPER!!!) to take him out of the picture as Bionexus suggested. The third use I've found for this power is to take out enemy 'buffers' from the battle, such as Devouring Earth eminators that they drop on the ground, Malta auto-turrets and Sky Raider's Force Field Generators. After all the other enemies are gone, the Detention Field should have lifted, and you can easily take out the helpless buffer. A very versatile and useful ability. I also recommend a seperaseparate macro to warn allies that the target cannot be harmed, something like this:
/macro Det "team Don't attack the $target! It is Detained and cannot be harmed! Wait for the bubble on it to wear off!"
And use that macro AFTER you've successfully trapped the target. I tried to bind it along with the power, but when the power did fail once in awhile, it just made me look dumb and confused my allies.
Repulsion Field
This power acts to keep melee enemies away from you by knocking them back. As stated by Bionexus, it does cost ALOT of endurance when you are surrounded by a mob, but if you are on the outside edge of combat as I feel you SHOULD be, this should not be an issue. The field itself doesn't use much endurance when no enemies are near you, and it can save you from sneak attacks from the back. Also if you wish, you could keep it off until you see someone coming towards you, then turn the power on, target them and blast away. The field will keep them away from you or on the ground until you can destroy them. It, along with the PFF are the two primary powers to defend YOURSELF from attack. Note that with PFF on, this power is useless, so you would use this power when you still want to be able to attack enemies rather than hide from them.
Bowling!
Another use I found for this power is to save a teammate in trouble, if you have the extra endurance to sacrifice for their life. Simply turn the power on and run to them, knocking the enemies away from them. If melee attackers are killing your ally, you can go towards THEM and keep them off their feet for a while. If you get into trouble from this, you can always turn on your PFF to protect yourself and to disperse the aggro you've obtained. Again another way to use a power to DEFEND your teammates.
Repulsion Bomb
This power works like Force Bolt, but with an Area of Effect knockback and you target an ally instead of an enemy WITH a disorient bonus. Good to save teammates with. Bionexus has a few good tricks with this power, even though I disagree with him that there is very little use for the power. I think you can use this all of the time along with Force Bolt to keep enemies away from your squishy friends, and even your squishier (post-Issue 6) scrapper buddy, with their consent of course. All the scrapper has to do is pick one target and auto-follow them while attacking, so that when you shake all of the enemies off him, he can run right to the one he wants. I also have a couple other strategies I'd like to add. I call this the Big Bang and Crunch. Basically you have an ally hold aggro, either a tank or another hero with taunt. Then you use repulsion bomb on him and knock all the enemies back or onto the ground. They then have to get up, shake off disorientation and/or run back to the hero. This is plenty of time for yourself and other blaster types to go nuts on the enemies, hitting them as much as you want. The enemies then come back to the taunter, and you rinse and repeat. On the off chance that one of them might not come after the taunter, then the entire team can switch to that one and take out the offender. You can also use this like Force Bolt while working with a teammate to position enemies together, or against a wall, for grouping for Area of Effect attacks. You can then use Force Bolt along with it to tuck in any that get out of the area.
Force Bubble
Finally we come to, well, the final power of the set, the Force Bubble. It keeps enemies away from you, and pretty FAR away from you. As stated by Bionexus, this power is really NOT made for the solo player, however since you chose to play a force field defender, more than likely you're not interested in solo-ing anyway. This is a power that should not be used all the time, as it is noted for it's high endurance cost, I recommend that anyone that wishes to use this power extensively take Stamina and 3-slot both that and this power. With both of those 3-slotted (post Issue 6) the Force Bubble can stay up almost indefinitely, as long as you do nothing else and have no more toggles on. This is mostly a click-and-use, then turn off when you don't need it kind of power, unlike Dispersion Bubble. Bionexus states that he found it to be of limited use, yet also includes in his guide several uses for it..... hmmmm... interesting. Anyways, Yes you can stand in the far back and use it to keep your squishy friends safer, and yes you can even use it to 'pin' enemies against walls and corners to keep them immobile. However, I feel that while Dispersion Bubble is a nice bonus (last I heard 10-12.5%), it is not nearly as nice of a bonus as the bonus you get from keeping enemies out of melee range. Since toughies can take a few hits without worries, and you should ALWAYS have Deflection/Insulation fields on your teammates at all times, I see no problems in using it to protect our squishy buddies. This will also help remind the squishies that they really should stay as far back as their offensive powers allow them to.
Aggro Bomb
However, there are other uses for this power. You can make USE of the fact that the Force Bubble draws aggro towards you, one of Bionexus' complaints. Again, spread aggro is almost always better than aggro concentrated on a squishy, so you can use Force Bubble to push against the enemies and draw aggro to yourself. Then if you start to get low on health due to their ranged attacks, you can quickly turn on PFF and turn off Force Bubble. You now should have most of the aggro still on you, but you're almost invulnerable. When the enemies are aggroed by other heroes, the aggro will be more spread out, and will be less dangerous to any individual hero. You can rinse and repeat if another hero for some reason draws most of their fury.
The Wall
Another neat trick only works in certain circumstances. Basically when you are in a room which goes INTO a short-in-width hallway, you can stand right around the corner of the hallway and turn the power on. Then whenever any mobs are aggroed, this acts as a barrier which they cannot pass. You can use this either just to keep the enemies away from your teammates, who are in the room and can blast at a safe distance, OR as a great way to give your allies a safe retreat. Since you are around the corner and out of the enemies' line of sight, they cannot see you to attack you, but they ARE stopped from moving into the room, thanks to your Force Bubble.
Confusing the Ranks
Finally, the enemies in the game have two 'modes', melee mode (when you can see a melee weapon in their hand) and ranged mode. It usually takes a few seconds for them to switch modes, and when they are in melee mode, they many times prefer to STAY in melee mode. You can take advantage of this with the Force Bubble. You can either wait until the enemies are engaged in melee battle with another hero, or engage them yourself up close and personal, and then instantly activate the power. For many of the enemies, they will still remain in melee mode for a while and will keep trying to run at you rather than attack. If you continually back up and move forward again, moving the bubble and pushing against them in the process, you should be able to keep this up for a good while.
Secondaries - Our offensive powers
I will not go into too much detail about this subject, since there are so many possibilities to test here and I don't have the time or patience to test every build. The only note that I will make is that the Philotic Knight is actually an electrical blast secondary, and that the secondary effect of electrical blast (endurance drain) is a Godsend. There is nothing more beautiful in the world than using a Short Circuit or two (using PFF between uses to protect yourself) and watching the the mob of enemies sits helpless staring at you, devoid of any will to do ANYTHING. Defenders got all of their secondary effects boosted in Issue 5 I think (might have been 4) so take full advantage of this! And with Issue 6, these powers also have the ability to sometimes return endurance, which can help to keep your endurance bar full.
As for our secondary blasting powers however, our role as stated before is to DEFEND. There are many FF defenders out there that see themselves as a blaster that can buff. I see this as the biggest mistake an FF defender can possibly make, since they only do about 2/3rds of the damage of a blaster with the same damage slotted (estimated). While you are out there adding your minuscule damage to the team's effort, some of your teammates may be dying by your side. Why attack all the time and risk their deaths when you can time your attacks and save them for your team's DEFENSE? Remember, a dead enemy cannot attack, so having a load of attacks ready to smite your ailing ally's foe at a given moment can be invaluable to saving their life. The primary purpose of a defender is to DEFEND, so while you may have offensive powers, these can and should be used in a DEFENSIVE way whenever possible rather than an offensive way.
Repeat my mantra over and over again:
My primary powers should be PRIMARY, my secondary powers should be SECONDARY.
If you want to play a blaster, PLAY A BLASTER.
Conclusion
I hope that this guide has been enlightening and educational to the new and old Force Field defenders out there, feel free to add to this thread any new tricks or strategies that you may have knowledge of. And to all you old-timers out there that are set in your ways and see yourself only as a buff-bot, I truly do feel great sympathy for you, for you are missing out on the strengths of 2/3rds of your own powerset, and you are gimping your ability to DEFEND your teammates substantially. In the end, you need to remember one thing: you are a Defender. This is your name, this is your role, and this is your destiny.
Embrace it!
That's exactly what I was doing.
to you!
