The faces of support?

justicezer0

Is there anyplace to learn more about what forms of "support" exist to build a support character around, how well they work and some tips on how to effectively apply them?

Most people seem to immediately gravitate to "support=healing/bubbles", whereas I have a dislike for watching people standing around contributing nothing but HP refills, and deluding themself into thinking that that alone merits them a group spot. As such, i'm hoping to find out about things beyond *only* putting more HP on peoples bar or *only* making things stop moving.

jellycupsowbug

You can use attacks that debuff enemy resistance, and there are the passives that buff team resistance or damage. Earth form has an enemy snare radius, I think. There aren't many active support buffs, though. There's Howl, which applies Enrage/fear as a pbaoe, but one enrage stack won't do much for people without SS Strength. Stuns and knock-up are pretty good for interrupting anything below boss level, but don't require any extra investment.

flowcyto

Here are some nice examples from each type of support category:

-Sigils: Radiant (buffs nearby allies) or Ebon (weakens nearby enemies) w/ high Pres
-Heals: Iniquity, Celestial Conduit, Arcane Vitality_Vala's Light.
-Shields: MR & Protection Feild.
-Reses: Redemption w/ aoe adv, Res Serum.
-Auras: AoPM (stats, all-rounder), AoRP (team mitigation), AoED (damage aura) w/ high Pres. Sentinel Aura in the spec trees.
-Active Buffs: Illumination+Ascension & Howl, Redirect Force.
-Pets/Summons: Shadows for some extra dmg and target fodder; Support Drones or Radiant summons help heal for you, the Primal Summon wolf Howls, other pets are mostly for light dmg/control.
-Debufs: Ebon Ruin's adv, Chest Beam, Demolish, Arc of Ruin's adv, trauma, Fears & Disorients, Skarn's Bane for buff removal; Trapped or Wither in the spec trees for more team dmg via control spells.
-Holds: Ego Hold & Mental Storm are the most useful since they're aoe (Soul Mes w/ adv can be aoe too). Incapacitates that also do some dmg while channeling (Ego Choke, Crippling Coils) are also okay.

As ya can see, its more than just healing and shielding (though I luv committed healers in Rampages.. def deserve their spot even if they never do any dmg; the medics)

williamkony

Flowcyto's got it covered, for the most part. :P

When my main is in support mode, I'll heal via Rebuke, shield via Mindful Reinforcement, debuff and control enemies via Ego Sleep with its advantage, raise allies' general effectiveness via Aura of Primal Majesty, wipe threat from squishy allies via Palliate with its advantage, boost the damage of allies via Draysha Gas Pistol, and quickly revive allies via Become Doomlord. All of that with just five abilities that have plenty of other uses outside of supporting others, and two items. It's not too difficult to find ways to help out with a fairly small investment.

agentnx5

Flowcyto has the gest of it. Great info to share!

It also should be worth noting that in terms of power that actually pause enemies and control combat, things like stuns and snares are often underestimated. Stuns can be made VERY powerful if you want to go that route (i.e.: Thunderclap & Manipulator). Snares can be useful for bunching enemies up, which is actually extremely helpful for yourself or teammates using AoEs.

Oh yeah and don't forget about two other support aura that don't get mentioned as often AoED and AoAC.

AoED (Aura of Ebon Destruction) gives a damage increase to a lower level of the power's damage, not additive. This results your DPS teammates being able to break past their normal damage soft-caps and REALLY hurt. Also effective for pets.

AoAC (Aura of Arcane Clarity) at first might seem useless, but the cost redux, cooldown redux, and charge time redux are actually quite significant in teamplay, more than you might at first think. A whole second off of Force Cascade's charge time or 5 seconds off of Strafing Run's cooldown makes a big damn difference in a team's DPS output. The difference is most pronounced if playing with archetypes.

And btw, AoPM can give huge buffs to allies if done in Support role and having high PRE. Seen players doing this who give +110 to all allies' stats. Think that makes a big difference? Oh yeah it does! Rounds out everyone's builds so their weaknesses are minimized and makes their existing stuff work better.

jonesing4

agentnx5 wrote: »

AoAC (Aura of Arcane Clarity) at first might seem useless, but the cost redux, cooldown redux, and charge time redux are actually quite significant in teamplay, more than you might at first think. A whole second off of Force Cascade's charge time or 5 seconds off of Strafing Run's cooldown makes a big damn difference in a team's DPS output. The difference is most pronounced if playing with archetypes.

Seconding this, with the caveat that I've only been in a team with an AoAC user twice (that I know of). But on certain builds, having the major cooldown reduction and basically playing with free Energy is an awesome advantage.

I guess the main drawback to AoAC, as far as team play is concerned, is that some builds really won't benefit that much from it. If you don't use a lot of powers with cooldowns or charge times, and already have great Energy management, you won't notice it as much. The other auras, meanwhile, benefit everybody--we can all use more defense, damage, or stats.

My toon with a planned AoAC build is still sitting at level 12, so I haven't been able to test its effectiveness out yet.

Unknown

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foosnark

Most of what I do during an alert with a support character is... kill stuff. Occasionally I will throw heals to those who look like they need it. Mostly I don't, I just let the passive do its work.

Some of my support role characters can out-DPS a lot of DPS role types and steal aggro from tanks. Meanwhile they're boosting those characters even while outperforming them.

morigosa

One power I don't think anyone's mentioned is Inertial Deflection Field. It's a flat damage reduction off all attacks against anyone in range - and stacks exceptionally well with Aura of Runic Protection. My support character uses those two - the combination essentially says "Anyone in range of me now has near-invulnerability levels of defense". Combine that with a constant trickle of healing from Sentinel Aura, and I usually don't have to do more than exist to keep an alert team going. Which leaves me free to throw lightning around. Whee!

I've got Mindful Reinforcement and a res, of course, but those mostly see use only against Gravitar, or if I'm trying to solo stuff I really shouldn't be soloing.

IDF does have some issues with energy, though; I get around that by liberal use of Dark Transfusion. (It's also useful when soloing in hybrid stance where you don't have support stance's energy bonuses.) Yes, yes, Dark Transfusion says it reduces healing... but my tests indicate it doesn't reduce Sentinel Aura or Mindful Reinforcement, so I don't really care.

And I do also have Concentration; can't use that in conjunction with IDF, but it's worth having for solo play & for those situations where my damage output is more important than reducing the damage dealt to others (i.e. smash alerts).

Another worthy power is Miniaturization Drive. It's a surprisingly strong debuff, and you can take reciprocal gyro to make it work as a damage buff for yourself, as well. Of course, the size changes involved will make it out-of-theme for a lot of builds...

williamkony

morigosa wrote: »

One power I don't think anyone's mentioned is Inertial Deflection Field. It's a flat damage reduction off all attacks against anyone in range - and stacks exceptionally well with Aura of Runic Protection. My support character uses those two - the combination essentially says "Anyone in range of me now has near-invulnerability levels of defense". Combine that with a constant trickle of healing from Sentinel Aura, and I usually don't have to do more than exist to keep an alert team going. Which leaves me free to throw lightning around. Whee!

I've got Mindful Reinforcement and a res, of course, but those mostly see use only against Gravitar, or if I'm trying to solo stuff I really shouldn't be soloing.

IDF does have some issues with energy, though; I get around that by liberal use of Dark Transfusion. (It's also useful when soloing in hybrid stance where you don't have support stance's energy bonuses.) Yes, yes, Dark Transfusion says it reduces healing... but my tests indicate it doesn't reduce Sentinel Aura or Mindful Reinforcement, so I don't really care.

And I do also have Concentration; can't use that in conjunction with IDF, but it's worth having for solo play & for those situations where my damage output is more important than reducing the damage dealt to others (i.e. smash alerts).

Another worthy power is Miniaturization Drive. It's a surprisingly strong debuff, and you can take reciprocal gyro to make it work as a damage buff for yourself, as well. Of course, the size changes involved will make it out-of-theme for a lot of builds...

Oh, right! I'd forgotten about Inertial Dampening Field, I have that as well. XD Excellent in Alerts with lots of small enemies!