BUILD AND PLAY SAMPLES

Note that in every build, this is my slotting for the three default powers. As a defender, you won't be close enough to brawl except possible in some situations in the early levels. Either way don't bother with brawl. Sprint takes endurance and offers speed that just isn't needed at later levels. Early on, go ahead and slot run, but after a while, you're safe to leave it empty. You will use Rest less and less through the levels so eventually, it's fine to leave it unslotted.

Levels 1-14

Though I knew I would need Stamina eventually, I prefer to take all attack and useable powers right away since the first 24 levels go so fast. Just plow through them to get a good balance of attacking and debuffing powers in time for your first tf at level 14.

You COULD do the TF at level 10, but you will have a much better time if you wait until level 14 so you have the full Sneak and TP combo. Not to mention having a strong Travel Power.

At this point, you have good attack power, the almighty Tar Patch with slow enhancers (this will change the face of battles in your favor alone), and the full Sneak and TP combo so you can sneak to the end of missions (for faster mission and TF completion).

Play tips

• You will run out of endurace quite quickly so remember to turn off Super Speed before battles and only use Shadow Fall when sneaking or fighting things that use Energy, Negative Energy, or Psionics. Because you're attacks are quite weak, use Tar Patch a lot. It makes your attacks far more powerful and slows enemies enough that you can often fire Moonbeam in the middle of battle without interruption.

Levels 1-24

If you do all the tfs available (Synapse, Sister Psyche, Positron, and Moonfire) you will reach level 24 quite quickly. It is at this level that you can earn your first respec and where I recommend going back to do the low level Safeguard missions if you haven't already. This is because you may get stuck sometimes with Super Speed, but you can get out with a little effort in most zones. This is not true with Terra Volta (the location of the final mission in the respec Trial). You will need some kind of power (like the Safeguard powers, or the Jump Jet Pack) by then for sure unless one of your team mates happens to have Recall Friend and can drag you to the reactor.

Play tips

• Tenebrous Tentacles and Night fall work very well with each other. Typically, you will want to fire Tentacles first to root the enemies in place, then back up to fire Night fall (since Night Fall has a longer range, but a more narrow cone). Use this combo for hunting missions, badge hunting, or really anywhere that you find more than 2 or 3 enemies in a small cluster.
• If you do the Positron TF, the final boss is and Arch-Villain called the Clockwork King. He uses psychic attacks so stay close to your team to make sure that they're covered by Shadow Fall's protection.

Level 1-50

From level 24 to 30 you will get back the powers you gave up to insert the Stamina line. Just pick the powers that you find you miss the most first. Notice I also put Fly powers in there before level 24. This is because I like to badge hunt and I want Fly for that. Since the lowest PvP zone (Bloody Bay) has a level cap of 25, if I want to fly there, it needs to be in the first 24 powers.

But there's no question of what power to get at level 32. With 3 slots per level starting at level 33 and two slot levels per power level now (meaning you now have two levels of enhancement slots per one level of new powers), you will easily have Dark Servant fully slotted by level 34.

The major point of this ordering is to have your Sneak/TP combo and Stamina as low level as possible with the rest of the powers being the ones I considered critical to get in between. As a level 50, you may find yourself jtagwrite="Exemping"/> to catch missed content or to play with friends. When you're low level, you have to put off strong powers for the sake of attacks. However, at high levels, you are only Exemping because you're in a TF, Trial, or team where there are other members to do the damage so your attacks aren't as important.

Play Tips

• A well known, but worth mentioning anyway, combo is the Soul Drain, Blackstar, Blue inspiration, Dark Consumption. With this you buff your attack tremendously, blast the hell out of everything, then gain enough endurance to drain whatever's left standing to put you back to near full endurance so you can keep fighting.