I'm a huge batman fan so i love gadgets power in general but i do find it very hard to stay alive even when i use a shield. You just take too much damage and unlike other powers health never seems to come back at all so i am forced to drink my soda then i usually end up dead before my soda cools down because the hits are just too big. 2 or 3 70k hits and i'm done. Blocking doesn't seem to help much either. I die almost every time i try the new duo and i play on normal cause i don't dare try elite. Brimstone almost always kills me cause those handclaps come out of nowhere and hit me for 70-100k even if i manage to get my shield up i still take a ton of damage and its quite frustrating. I have alts that are different powers and they almost never die and they are not even my main. My main is the gadgets toon with trans strat and grim arts at 200 and 491 sp but it feels like my gear is made out of cardboard cause i take so much damage. As much as i love gadgets i am getting tempted to switch powers cause i'm tired of dying all the time.
Pretty much every single Troll power have low sustainability. None of them have a self heal, and in DPS mode hardly any power have self-heal aside from long-cooldown skills or VERY low health returned to you. You just need to get used to it, get better equipment, increase your SPs to put in health, and during fights with small mobs, abuse your stuns, against bosses, avoid the avoidable hazards (in brimstone's case, shield and block his explodions and avoid all attacks preceded by red areas) and try to outdamage your health, which means, kill it before it kilsl you. You can have a second shield with the Iconic Power "Hard Light barrier" (it's even colour-cuystom!) to use alongside your regular shield, use your soder colas, Orbital Drops, Allies, pets and backup, throw everything to end the battle before it ends you. Being a duo, ask for a healer or tank in LFG chat! We can help you!
When there's no tank, ads target locks on the player doing the most damage. Since gadget's your main, I assume that toon does the most damage so it gets targeted more often than your alts. But I'll give you my secret in such situations... smoke screen! Ads attacking you?!? Throw in smoke screen and you'll have some shield and then watch the ads start attacking the other player instead, LOL. There's also the decoy, if you want a more group friendly way of diverting their attacks. Gadgets powerset is very versatile.
Gadgets has plenty of survivability tools. You have Distract which is a detaunt and CC immunity shield which I personally have in every one of my loadouts except battletroll. Neural neutralizer is a bit weak but it absorbs at least a couple hits in the elite duo so probably even more in reg plus it also stuns non-boss enemies if you’re above the minimum dom threshold . You have holographic decoy although it doesn’t always work well if you’re below the minimum dom threshold. But if you’re above it’ll aggro enemies in it’s vicinity. Then you have stealth which is also a detaunt but also automatically puts you at the bottom of the hate table. If you use the improved stealth hand mod, stealth becomes the 2nd strongest shield in the game and also provides CC immunity (though I think that aspect is broken). Lastly you have suppressor turret which by itself does nothing for survivability but if you’re using Distract it’s provides an entity with 100% uptime for enemies to aggro to once detaunted if running solo content or in duo or group content it allows you to detaunt without sending all the enemies at your teammate(s). You can also use the iconic power hard light shield which is like the 3rd or 4th strongest shield in the game. Also in iconics is robot sidekick which is just an alternative to suppressor turret, perform essentially the same function. If you’re superspeed you have access to some survivability powers like phase dodge. There’s also personal dampening fields which are a consumable shield that’s actually pretty strong compared to other shields when in dps role. I say “when in dps role” because personal dampening fields absorb a flat amount damage whereas your powerset and iconic shields scale to dom and resto which is very low when DPS gear is equipped. Yet another survivability tool is your supply drop. Yeah, it’s got a really long cooldown but is still handy in a pinch. And lets not forget that some of the seasonal pets provide healing though their damage is much lower than the tiered damage pets. What’s equally important is your play skills. Learn the instance mechanics so you can figure out good positioning and be able to anticipate enemy damage mechanics (like the volcanic eruptions in the duo). Always be in the mindset to be mobile which often means jump canceling animations and tumbling away. Most gadgets powers can be quickly and easily canceled out of, the only exceptions I can think of are neural neutralizer, ohoton blast (finisher) and fear gas. Speaking of tumbling though, make sure you’re using tumbling master white mod in your feet for significantly further tumbling distance. Speaking of white mods, you do have the option of the fortified blocking neck mod giving you 10% more defense but that does come at the cost of not using the escalating might or relentless precision neck mods which are a solid boost to damage. I almost forgot allies. I don’t know off the top of my head all if their abilities, but calculator bot will heal up to around a quarter of your health every 30 seconds. He’s the lowest tier and can be leveled up to max level very quickly (a few days of grinding). Some of the Legendary allies do some stuff to help survivability. Queen Diana will pull aggro. Some of the others have some stunning/rooting/etc effects. So yeah, lots and lots and lots of survivability tools are st your disposal.
If I realized that, my friend from the league when we do elite, despite the fact that he is very pro, it is difficult for me to maintain it and it has not happened to me with other powers... Well, I have also told him to put on the solid shield, but they also want his turret
I’m sorry.. what? First of all power types don’t determine damage in while in dps role since it’s all based on stats. Only power that has an enhanced defense is ice with ice armor. That aside trolls in general have less sustain than other roles because of how lot that other roles have at their disposal. However gadgets has one of the highest survivability amongst other powers. Decoy is one of the best abilities for soloing content and it also has stealth and distract. You want to talk about low survivability? Look at HL. If you’re dying a lot in reg than it’s not because of the power. It’s because if mechanics being ignored.
Troll powers, from what I've seen, don't have a sustainable 'healing back' mechanic for DPS. But, not all other powers do. What they do have though, are shields. Take ice for example, not known for its healing back ability, but it does have shields. Even in dps role, a shield can buy you some time and mitigate damage. So for duo's, perhaps changing your loadout slightly too add a shield, would be your best bet. Remember also, that in each boss fight, there is a healing barrel. Pop shield, grab barrel, smash, healing coming in.
