Archery And TrickArrow Combo

I have been looking around in Mids and asking around in game, but I want a character with Archery and Trick Arrow powersets, unless I missed something it has to be a Defender or Corruptor then. I would really like it to be a hero, but not if it will be a pain to keep alive and low on damage.

So the questions are:

1. How much less damage would be noticed being done by the Defender over the Corruptor?

2. Approximately what enemyrank could Rain of Arrows 1shot, decently slotted as a hero over a villain? (and possibly how much lower than RoA's Blaster version?)

and 3. does this Defender powercombo sound like it has a decent survival rate? I planned on giving it Temp Invul and Force of Nature from Power Mastery anyway, but would I be being killed often without FoN active?

thanks for any answers you can answer, Mid's seemed particularly unreliable with this since Corruptors inherent alters damage with enemy health.

(I know RoA's high damage is usually assisted with Aim&or/BU and TA doesn't have a BU power with it, so i'm taking Power Build Up from Power Mastery as well)

10 50's To Date! Check out Titan Sentinel; it got my CoH presence synced online

You haven't rolled the character yet and you're already planning his Ancillary Pool choices? Wow.

If you don't want "low on damage", that pretty much rules out Defenders across the board, but I suspect you'll have better luck with questions this specific about the numbers over on the Defender and/or Corruptor boards. Question 2, for example, I haven't got a clue about, but I'm sure somebody over there has done the math.

I can't give solid numbers, but the TA/A Defender is pretty survivable. I'm not saying you can tank an 8x spawn solo, but for regular play you can manage a good standing for yourself even before taking things like Tough/Weave (assuming that's in your planned build).

Personally, I love mine; haven't tried the Corruptor version to give a comparison, though.

Okay, well, many of these questions are somewhat subjective/relative.

1. The Defender is going to do less damage. A Defender's roles are support (primary) and damage (secondary), while for a Corruptor it's the other way around. A Corruptor, all other things being equal, is going to put out significantly more damage even without considering Scourge. That said, for a Defender, Trick Arrow offers a significant damage boost versus some of the other sets in that you get Oil Slick Arrow. Archery isn't the best of the Defender secondaries when it comes to damage but partially makes up for this with higher accuracy, so your DPS is not bad. Not on the level of a Corruptor or Blaster, certainly, but neither is it so low that you couldn't solo effectively. Especially once you get OSA, you can solo quite well.

2. There's too many variables here - the type of enemy (and therefore what resistances they have), the debuffs in play from Trick Arrow at the time (especially slows such as Glue Arrow to contain the enemies for the full rain), and so forth. In general you can usually clear minions from a mob and do decent damage to lts and bosses, assuming all enemies are at full health when RoA starts. As a Blaster, of course, you're going to do more damage, especially if you use Build Up.

3. Yes, it's very decent. Most debuff-centered Defenders are very survivable if played well, as opposed to buff-centered Defenders who often have many ally-only buffs that make them incredibly powerful in multiple-Defender teams but leave them a bit in the lurch solo.

Ultimately, questions like "how surivable is it?" and "how's the damage?" depend heavily on your expectations and your idea of what level of survivability and damage output constitutes acceptable. For a Defender, a TA/A won't rank as high as a Kin or most */Sonic combos in terms of damage output, but does better than many others. In terms of survivability it offers significant tools for the savvy player to make use of, much like Storm. If you're going to compare a Defender to a Blaster or Corruptor and use those other ATs as your standard for damage output, you're going to be disappointed no matter what you choose.

I have a Trick Arrow/Archery Defender in the mid 20s, and I don't have much of a problem with his damage output or survivability. Of course, I took the Leadership pool, and I usually run with Assault toggled, so.....

If that's what you want to roll, don't let damage concerns worry you. I have a TA/Archery defender around lvl 36 or so and he soloed almost all the way there. He soloed AVs in Faultline arcs. You may have a little more difficult time than some builds, but there's nothing they absolutely cannot do with a little ingenuity and persistence.

thanks for all the responses . I decided to go with the Corr, with Mako's epic for hibernate as the panic button in exchange for force of nature I was planning for the defender. I had wanted him to be a hero, but I just got the lv15 vet titles, and one for villains is "innocent" for some reason, so i'm doing the robin hood theme for the archer with that title, and a little backstory bio (I usually don't write bio's but this one came to me). He's like lv4 but I love the recharge and the sets together .

Yeah Kheld I usually try to get a mid's plan to 50 with sets in before starting the toon. I used to just setup the slots, but I found you just can't get the slots right without knowing what sets you're going to use for what powers lol.

I know at least one of you play on guardian , if you see The Noble Sharpshooter redside it's him!

10 50's To Date! Check out Titan Sentinel; it got my CoH presence synced online