Good read. I'd say that your warning on Energy Blast is a little severe. Experienced players can use Energy to position the mobs just as well as any storm defender.
My big gripe: Force Field defenders have the ONLY form of Team Mez protection in the game. Dispersion Bubble defends against every form of mez except sleep. FFer's are invaluable to have around for Blaster/Defenders/Controllers who have no way of protecting themselves against status effects. This probably should've been mentioned in your guide 
-Jag
Balance is not about making everybody the same. Balance is about making your strengths worth all of your weaknesses.
Firstly, FF defenders having the weakness against sleep makes them not so valuable. They get turned off all the time by sleep affects and forget using dispersion to fight the tsoo. In PvP FF defenders will also be a major target for mind controllers and even the the rest of attackers because firstly, they have little protection against any attack, especially compared to the others whio have 3 tiers of bubbles. Secondly, the enemies will want to both shut off his disperion bubble and prevent any more bubbles in a possibly long fight. Not to mention any force bubble they may be running to keep the melees of the other team occupied. Imo the only thing that'll keep an FF alive against human players are invisible force fields with all the same personal fields the same colour and design. Furthermore, you could just as easily argue about Shadowfall offering both energy and negative damage resist while at the same time providing a damage resist to the hardest defendable attack power, which is psychic. Clear Mind, is also very powerful as it doesn't require a toggle or constant endurance. You're also wrong about no other team mez protection, as Radiation has Accelerate Metabolism which enhances the mez protection, and is one of the most popular powers in the game, making the team mez available to most players in the game. And don't get me started on those all rad teams that stack AM. You also have kinetics that can boost single target vs mezzes but sleep, giving their teammates an edge also as it also boosts damage resistance to smash/energy, the two most common attacks.
AM only reduces the amount of time that you are held. I can still hold you. If you really want to talk team tactics: That Rad, that Kin, that Emp, that Storm - All I have to do I hold them. They can't Clear Mind themselves, so without the bubbler around, they're dead meat. It makes much more sense to have a bubbler and someone who can keep the bubbler from sleeping. An FFer with 02 Boost on isn't going to get slept, and the Storm defender doesn't have to worry about getting mezzed.
If you really want to talk about PvP teaming, an FFer is the best you can have: Even if your FFer dies, his two bubbles he put on you last for four minutes. He keeps your Rad and Dark defenders fighting, as they're mostly worthless (except for pets and AM) if their toggles drop.
Anyway. The whole point of my post was: FFers have three powers worth taking and slotting: Deflection, Insulation, and Dispersion. Dispersion bubble does something that no other power does in the game, and should be mentioned.
-Jaguar
And some of us *coughControllerscough* have the ability to close the sleep hole in Dispersion bubble. You can't mez my ill/ff.
Balance is not about making everybody the same. Balance is about making your strengths worth all of your weaknesses.
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Energy: Knockback can be useful for knocking things into position or for keeping them on their backs and not attacking. However, it can ruin the plans of a debuffer or a melee. Approach with caution, for Energy can get your group killed. It will absolutely destroy any sort of plan involving debuffs. Let me put it more bluntly: NEVER, EVER, EVER COMBINE ENERGY BLAST WITH DARK MIASMA OR RADIATION!!!!
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I run an energy blaster with a Rad/Rad and have no problem, if i am not the only dmg dealer in the team i spend a bit of time "sweeping" mobs into the Rad infection or Enverb fields with my "weaker" attacks and the others finish it off.
Thru to, inexperineced knockback users, Energy/ some AR's can totaly wreck the debuffs, scattering mobs with an AoE knocker. Those types i warn once the next time i kick from team 
and Please don't kill the anchor. Anyone level 20 and up should know better (unless they were power leveled)
All in all I liked the guide. Thanks for your advice/ and time spent typing it.
.:Brmstone's BLOG:.
Thanks a lot for this guide! I even have a coh book that was given to me with the game ("PRIMA Official Game Guide"), and your overviews + others' comments are more helpful, especially in discussing how these defender classes fit with different types of teams.
My first hero is EdenAvenger, now a lvl 37 fire/energy tank and "ton" of fun. My first alt I am making will bea kinetic/dark defender to team with an invuln/ax or fire/ax tank friend. Your guide helped me figure out which defender class might work best in that duo.
I'd like even more guidance on slotting, but even, even more on tactics, say for a kin/dark and melee fighter duo, or another team up based on your guide, a storm defender teamed with, say, and ice blaster. Tips? Things to watch out for that you wish you had known?
I wish everyone who sees an empathy defender on doesnt think just healer anymore, we do attack, we do have skills that are importance, and not always will we be able to save you. Don't blame the defender for not saving you before the baddie killed you.
A Defender isn't a "Cleric". A defender is a hybrid buff-debuffer/nuker designed as a support class with decent punch. The buffs and debuffs available in CoH are far more powerful than those in other games; with one debuff a defender can make an entire group of enemies almost completely helpless in some aspect, or enhance a group member to almost god-like status. As a result, the role of healing is greatly reduced in comparison to other MMO's; with adequate and competent defensive buffing and debuffing, a skilled group will rarely need all that much repairing, though repair will often still hold some importance. The means by which a given Defender is able to defend the group and themself will vary from one defender to the other, as unlike other sets, the defenses are not in the form of virtually identical powers with different animations, but rather, in a variety of unique defensive powers, each needing different tactics and design considerations to use at full effect.
Set specialties are:
Darkness (Debuffer): A "fully defensive" set, this set excels at a blend of Controller style lockdown with the greatest capacity to cripple an enemy's offensive ability.
It's heal (area, centered on you, must hit a mob to use) is also a formidable single target debuff; my usual use for it is to chain it on archvillains in conjunction with my other powers, rendering the foe unable to deal significant damage. It's most powerful powers include Darkest Night, a toggle which debuffs both foe accuracy and damage. Unlike other MMO's, this debuff effect is massive; it can quite easily render foes two levels above you virtually unable to harm anyone. My typical demonstration of this power is to throw it on an orange in a pack of mobs, jump into the middle of them, and proceed to discuss the rest of my powerset while ignoring the foes attacking me. It's capstone is Dark Servant, a pet which cycles Tenebrous Tentacles (a cone immobilize from Dark Blast which is sometimes referred to as "the japanese schoolgirl treatment" or the "hentai blast"), Petrifying Gaze (a single hold), an unenhanced form of Darkest Night, and a heal. Get this, slot for recharge. Permahaste and 5 recharge means three of these out at any given time.
Other powers include an AOE stealth that gives protection against psychic and energy attack, a fear (lockdown), single hold, AOE res/AOE debuff, and more.
Storm: I'm always amazed to see so few of these, as the ones I have grouped with are extremely potent. I chalk it up to people not realizing the advantages they grant. Storm primarily excels as support for ranged combatants. A Storm defender can herd like a tanker, utterly protect blasters from melee, grant stealth to the group, rearrange the positioning of enemies in the room, slow the foes in the area, enhance the damage of the group, and contribute destruction. Their heal is also a formidable status effect protection buff, but the Defender cannot use it on themself. The important powers I know of include Hurricane, which should be slotted heavily for accuracy debuff - this repels foes away from you to the edge of a certain radius around you, while debuffing accuracy and granting a 50% range debuff (nearsight in DAoC terms) and is complete protection against melee attack; Freezing Rain, which provides ice-slick or earthquake type 'falldownandstandupandfalldownandstandup' control while debuffing those affected by it's defense (they are easier to hit) and resistance (every hit does more damage).
Kinetics: Slightly unusual in that it focuses almost entirely on offense rather than defense, Kinetics excels as support for melee fighters. It's heal, Transfusion, takes the form of an attack which, if it hits, drains the endurance from a target, which 'explodes out' from the target hit in the form of a sizable AOE heal. This allows you to repair a group of melee fighters without having to enter the battlefield yourself, if needed. It's capstone power, Fulcrum Shift, drains the damage capacity of a group of foes (the more the better) and explodes it out from them in the form of damage buffs for your team; it can easily bring your croup to the damage cap while reducing enemies to the damage floor. The earlier form of this power, Siphon Power, buffs around you, and is only single target (thus must be enhanced heavily with recharge to reach the drain cap) but refreshes rapidly. Kinetics has the buff Speed Boost, imo the best endurance regen buff in the game. While it's competitor, Recovery Aura, grants a faster recovery rate unslotted, RA's recharge rate is too slow to be made perma even with 6 recharge and permahaste. 6 slots of recovery in Speed Boost is typically more endurance than anyone can burn through, can be kept on without interruption, and enhances attack speed and running speed. Runspeed can be clumsy for some to control when overdone, so I don't recommend enhancing this aspect. If the buff from Speed Boost isn't enough, Kinetics also gains Transference, which is similar to Transfusion but heals Endurance instead, letting you top people off as needed. Kinetics also (at 18) has the power to grant an AOE Superjump buff; at level 6, they have a targeted slow (has to hit) which grants temporary superspeed to the wielder. Kinetics is often considered to be "slow blooming" and does not provide much defense, and so isn't for everyone.
Empathy is an unusual set in that it specializes in repairing damage, rather than preventing it. It has THREE potent heals, a res, the best status effect protection buff in the game, an AOE endurance recovery boost, a slow recharging targeted defensive buff (Fortitude), healing buffs, and the like. Empathy is often considered the weakest soloer due to the fact that their buffs so predominantly are targeted or recharge too slowly to make easily perma; it is important to note that this does not imply that they are of increased effectiveness in a group. They are often in demand because of players' high level of familiarity with their powerset; they are very common.
Force Field is a set based around pure damage mitigation. Their powers are almost all based around increasing defense or knocking down enemies. Everyone is familiar with the main three powers in the set: two targeted buffs which profoundly enhance defenses, and a big toggled AOE bubble which further greatly buffs defense. Beyond this, the set also has powers to knock down and knock back foes. A Force Field defender has no healing powers, but healing will often be completely unneeded around them.
Radiation (Debuffer) has been at times the most popular set in the game. It provides excellent damage mitigation through debuffing while profoundly enhancing damage with the same debuffs. Radiation Infection is probably the most important power in the set. It gives a massive debuff to both enemy accuracy (they miss) and defense (your team hits a lot more). Also of great importance is Enervating Field, which debuffs their damage (they do less damage when they hit) and resistance (when YOU hit, you do about 40% more damage than you would have). EF cannot have it's effects enhanced, but it's endurance drain is severe, so many slot endurance reducers. Radiation also has Accelerate Metabolism, which hastens, increases damage, increases endurance recovery somewhat, and though it doesn't prevent status effects, makes the effects wear off much more quickly. By using AM, EF, and RI together with a well slotted secondary set, a Rad defender can approach the damage of a blaster, turn a tanker into a scrapper, turn a scrapper into a tanker, and turn a blaster into a tanking, scrapping, old-testament style wrathful God. Finally, Radiation has what is possibly the single most powerful AOE Hold in the game.
Secondaries: Once again, the Defender isn't some meek cleric to throw bandages about , only to squeal in horror when beset upon by the least foe the group is facing. Defenders get blasts, at 2/3 the damage of a blaster, with often useful secondary effects.
Energy: Knockback can be useful for knocking things into position or for keeping them on their backs and not attacking. However, it can ruin the plans of a debuffer or a melee. Approach with caution, for Energy can get your group killed. It will absolutely destroy any sort of plan involving debuffs. Let me put it more bluntly: NEVER, EVER, EVER COMBINE ENERGY BLAST WITH DARK MIASMA OR RADIATION!!!!
Electricity: Sucking endurance is good! The most important part of this set to most Defenders is Short Circuit. Slotted for drain with haste, this power is the only one that can remove that last pesky point that comes back every tic and lets the mobs throw their heavy hitting 0.001 end cost attacks; it does this by having a debuff which prevents endurance regen for a few seconds. Many also adore Tesla Cage, a single hold. It also contains a pseudo-pet, in Voltaic Sentinel; while it can't draw aggro or anything else of the sort, it does add damage unattended while you might be doing something different.
Dark Blast: All these blasts reduce the accuracy of the enemy somewhat. This set is very heavy on control options. The Tenebrous Tentacles/Night Fall combination (run up for the hentai blast, back for the NF to catch everything in the two differetly shaped cones) is extremely effective. It also contains Dark Pit - an excellent AOE disorient, and a Gale-like knockback tool in Torrent for those who use such tools.
Radiation Blast: The most "offensive" form of blast available to the Defender, this set specializes in making hard to hit foes easy to hit. Irradiate is an excellent debuff, a point blank area of effect damage over time nuke which profoundly improves your team's chances to hit affected targets.
Psychic Blast: Often dismissed as "Slow", the Psychic Blast set can be very rewarding at higher levels, once you have gotten faster powers than the agonizingly slow Mental Blast and anemic Subdue. (Unless you have some specific idea for how to use them and are familiar with your build, do not get Subdue, do not slot Mental Blast.) Psychic powers slow the recharge of enemy powers, reducing their effectiveness in battle. Further, they all have longer range than other blasts in their class. Psychic Scream is AOE, with a larger cone than most blasts in it's class, and a noticable slow. Telekinetic Blast does good damage, part crushing type; Will Domination does serious damage and afflicts targets with a sleep. All have respectably fast animations. Psionic Lance is possibly the best snipe in the game for pulling. The often touted advantage of Psi attacks is that "Few mobs have any resistance to psi"; furthermore, you become very useful against enemies like Paragon Protectors and the like who activate powerful defenses which have no protection against psi. The downside is that when you do find a mob which is resistant to psi, they are PROFOUNDLY resistant, and you are unlikely to be able to solo them effectively without relying almost entirely on the mixed damage of TK Blast.
Tactics:
Radiation and Dark both rely heavily on debuffs. With debuffs, the key is to keep everything clustered together tightly. The easiest way to do that when solo or in a pair is to, immediately following placing the debuff, jump into the center of the mob. This is counterintuitive to many people. Furthermore, many people don't understand the debuff and innocently attack the debuff target early in the fight. This can lead to serious pain when the anchor falls and the enemies suddenly become much tougher. Explaining this to your teammates can be difficult, I generally recommend a demonstration after telling them to do nothing but watch and maybe stand next to you if needed.
Kinetics plays a lot like a blaster; the damage is less, but they can also lower incoming damage slightly, and heal themself.
Force Field is often considered a "Buff Bot" set. Once you've bubbled the team and put on your deflection bubble, your defending part of your job is mostly over. Thus, FF defenders should have working secondaries so that they will be able to act during the battle. Be cautious, as the lack of your targetted bubbles makes you the 'squishy center' of the group.
Storm should know how to herd like a tanker - take lessons if you must - and pay close attention to the shape of the room in which the fight is taking place. They are uniquely suited to re-ordering the position of mobs in the room for maximum effect. If playing with other defenders and Blasters, the blasters should know to move to the Storm defender for protection, as Hurricane offers almost complete protection for such people. Coordinate the use of Freezing Rain with the blasters, in order to maximize the effectiveness of their AOE's.
Empaths should keep people buffed appropriately. Many empaths spend the battle locked into watching the health bars. This is, imo, a bad idea. Instead, keep mobile, adjust settings to show health of all group members over their head, and monitor the battle, contributing CC and damage where it can provide the greatest leverage (such as badly wounded enemies, knocking back mobs chasing blasters, and the like) and paying close attention to the flow of the battle. By doing this, you can often see a change in the flow of battle which will result shortly in a teammate taking damage, and be able to patch their injuries almost before they take the damage. It can be difficult to cultivate this mindset (which is effectively the opposite of scrapper-lock) but when grouping with those who have developed that awareness, the group's effectiveness goes up considerably.
Played well, living up to the potentials of their unique design, a Defender can be a formidable force both inside of and outside of a group; they are rewarding to play for those who enjoy the tactical challenge of meshing with groups and protecting others, as well as those who like to mix offensive might with significant amounts of utility to seek out the tactical synergies of their abilities in any situation.
A no attack "Group-Friendly" Defender is like a "Team Friendly" basketball player who won't dribble, run, or shoot, under any circumstances. "I'm a PASSER."