Knights Night last night. Margie and I got on a bit late, and between east coasters dropping off and serious performance problems for some people (blamed on the I7 pre-downloads), didn’t go very long en masse. Still ended up with Fazenda and Araware running something late with (at the end) Noelle, which was fun, given both her devil-may-care attitude and the always-welcome contributions of a Controller.
Both F and A are halfway to level, which is nice. We should give them more playtime. Though I need to rebuild some of her macros, since at least one of them went away when I respecced her for Fly.
(Note to self: really need to do something like this for the Consortium. Really do.)
After that, Psi-clone briefly helped start up the Shadow Shard TF (#1) that Doyce is organizing. Ran around with the crew for a while, and was shocked to discover that I was the Team Healer; there’s usually one or another full Empathy Defender running around in this group, but last night they had to make do with just me — which led to a sort of Zen “Stand in the middle of battle, watch the team health bars, spam heals and buffs at anyone having trouble, toss in an occasional Blind as opportunity presents.”
Nice to pull Psi-clone out to do something, though. After having been running Fazenda, I was astonished by how fast he flew. And, really, even taken down to 41 or whatever the TF auto-exemps to, not much in the way of powers were grayed out — Regen Aura, Psionic Tornado (bleah), an Accolade or so. Not bad.
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***Dave Does the Game
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: for my money, and assuming an ‘average’ player, I’ll take a controller over a defender with the same set any day of the week.
Consider:
Controller gets a bunch of team-assisting mezzes as their primary, plus (probably) a pet or two (or three, if you go with Earth/Storm). That thier primary helps out the team is undeniable.
Controller then gets a defender primary as their secondary, ‘nerfed’ to roughly 80% effectiveness, but ONLY WHERE APPLICABLE. Yes, the heals and forcefields are at a reduced effectiveness, but Clear Mind is Clear Mind. Period. The effectiveness is still very good. Again, that their secondary helps the team is undeniable.
DEFENDER gets a defender primary at full potency. Helps the team, yes.
Defender then gets a ‘blaster’ set at reduced (too much so, in my experience) potency — nerfed enough that it’s actually more effective to slot the attacks for their SECONDARY effect, such as -acc on Dark Blast or -end on Electric. The benefit to the team is not always, but CAN be, questionable.
I’d only see the point of a defender in a situation where you, as a player, just WANT some kind of blasty-feeling-stuff to go with your buffs. Otherwise? Controller. They contribute more from both sets.
Note: all bets are off when you’re dealing with non-average players; bad ones can make any set crap, and a good ones can make any set fantastic.
Well, when the shit hits the fan, I’d rather have a 100% Empath than an 80% one … but I agree that playstyle can make a 50% difference in effectiveness.
Also, ahem, “devil-may-care”?
I protest!
Gee…
Whereas I had the Joy of clicking on a timed by accident and trying to solo an AV…and then being joined by JS to help out.
Almost did it…but the clock ran out on us as wolf guy died of a thousand nicks and cuts.
Also…
Yes, I will have to agree with the whole devil may care thing with Noelle. Was she leading the charge into battle again?
Not exactly leading the charge … but … well, yeah, I found myself keeping her reticled for the quick heal after she would draw all the aggro in the group by ice holding one of them before the scrappers got into the battle. 🙂