What, is it my breath? Jeebus, people, it's an honest question...I don't know jack about Defenders and I want an opinion, that's all...
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
I dont think a DEF's dmg is going to be able to compete with a corruptor, simply becuase of scourge. Sure the DeBuff/Buffs maybe stronger but the base dmg i think is higher for a corruptor.
But this isnt to say that DEF arent soloable, becasue they are very soloable. They just are not as fast as Corruptors.
As a very rough comparison of damage, given the same power, slotted the same way, on the same level toons:
Blaster: 100% damage
Corrupter: 85% damage
Defender: 66% damage
I'm a fan of all three ATs, and if you are looking for the hero AT that solo's the easiest, I'd choose the blaster over the defender. Defenders may be the weakest AT at soloing. I prefer my controllers for soloing over my defenders. Defenders have a very poor ratio of mitigating damage versus dealing damage. Consequently, mobs live longer to attack more. With a blaster, the mobs die fast, so mitigating damage is less of a concern.
Global: @FuzzyOne
Find me playing these servers: Champion, Justice, Freedom, Virtue and Pinnacle
Soloing a Defender can be a bit tedious, especially at the lower levels. Do you have any or multiple veteran attack powers? That might help you ease into things.
I'd suggest teaming up with another person or two to make life easier for yourself.
To be honest, it's really going to be a question that only you can answer. Defenders do decent enough damage, particularly those who can buff their damage or debuff enemy resistance. However it's less than corruptor damage. If that difference is enough to make you try to pull your hair out is really only something you can find out for yourself. Defenders can and do solo well, but quickly? Different people have different opinions on that. You'll have to form your own.
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... if you are looking for the hero AT that solo's the easiest, I'd choose the blaster over the defender.
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If you like soloing with a corruptor, in terms of play style I think you'd probably be drawn more to the blaster than the def.
I don't know about that.
Blasters have absolutely insane damage output. Unfortunately, due to their "Attack primary, attack secondary" they also frequently have insane damage INPUT. Be aware that it's a risky job.
Defenders, much less so on both the output and the input.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
I just got the Dark/Rad Defender version of my 50 Rad/Dark Corruptor to 50 itself last week. I think the Corruptor mindset is a great way to approach the combo, it's at its strongest when played offensively in my experience. It solos slower but safer than the corruptor, and while I did miss Scourge on the way up not so much as to make the experience intolerable. Maybe because Rad is so low damage-wise anyway, I didn't notice the difference that much. Waiting an extra ten levels for Cosmic Burst hurt a little, but having Fearsome Stare eight earlier is a great tradeoff.
Damage output is lower than the corr, but you and your team are even more unkillable with the Def. I mirrored the original build as much as possible on the Defender (I use Proton Volley point-blank on the Corr for the glee of a Scourging facesnipe thanks to Darkest Night, but I swapped it for Neutron Bomb on the Def to amplify my debuffing and AoE damage since I team more often on that build), and I'm thrilled with the results. I'll probably retire the Defender if Going Rogue lets me move the Corruptor into my SG, but that's for concept reasons as much as playstyle preference.
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However, I am a soloer. I like fighting, not supporting, and I'm concerned that a Defender isn't going to be up to the level I enjoy.
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Likewise. This combo satisfied me in these respects, and I say that with several death machine scrappers to compare it to. It's nowhere near as fast as any of them, but it is as reliable; I can solo very respectably on the highest difficulties even against padded spawns. Great thing about this combo is that you don't have to change your playstyle much or go out of your way at all to support a team. Go in fighting as you would on your own and you're providing support in a big way at the same time.
If damage output is the deciding factor to you though, the blaster or going /sonic instead of /rad might be more to your liking.
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Soloing a Defender can be a bit tedious, especially at the lower levels. Do you have any or multiple veteran attack powers? That might help you ease into things.
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Definitely does. /rad's -Defense coupled with the damage boost on a Tar Patch made Sands of Mu a staple power from 1-50 on my Defender, alleviating a lot of the low damage worries.
Do you UHVU?
Orpheus Initiative | Parts Unknown
League of Misfits | The Reciprocators
As an experienced Corruptor, you can probably guess about 90% of your problems with Defenders. Only Defenders are even worse off.
Both ATs generally have the same problem: namely, when solo, they have a hard time getting to that survival balance between mitigating incoming damage, and doing enough damage to the enemies in return. Or, in short, both ATs were designed with the idea that they would be hiding behind a meat shield.
Corruptors at least have the benefit of scourge - as the enemy weakens, the Corruptor's attacks get stronger. Defenders? Nada. Defenders got stuck with Vigilance.
Vigilance means that as a Teammates HPs decrease, you start getting an endurance discount.
Yeah, I'm sure you're thrilled, too. An inherent power that is not only nearly useless solo (Except in maps with pets.) but one that is rewarding you for failing at your primary function.
Both ATs, if you can get them to at least the mid 20s (at least, for most builds) finally achieve the kind of damage to mitigation ratio to really survive solo. But it's a long, hard road to get to that point.
Blaster, on the other hand, are actually at the other end of the spectrum. They generally have little built in mitigation, but loads of damage. So much damage, that it alone can easily carry them to the late 30s. That's when the lack of mitigation really starts to hit the Blasters - they go from being excellent solo to being very hard to solo.
Overall, my experience says that the Defender will be the most like what you are used to. The two ATs remain broken mirror images of each other, even in this. Defenders will, by necessity, have to concentrate on Mitigation over Damage. But if you can push them to the mid-to-late 20s, you should finally start feeling safe and even heroic...
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Both ATs generally have the same problem: namely, when solo, they have a hard time getting to that survival balance between mitigating incoming damage, and doing enough damage to the enemies in return. Or, in short, both ATs were designed with the idea that they would be hiding behind a meat shield.
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QFT
With all this being said, there are some defender primaries which solo easier than others.
For soloability, I'd rate...
Dark Miasma
Radiation Emission
Storm Summoning
more soloable than
Kinetics
Empathy
Force Fields
Sonic
Feel free to chime in if you have had a different experience soloing defenders 
Global: @FuzzyOne
Find me playing these servers: Champion, Justice, Freedom, Virtue and Pinnacle
At least I was right in picking Dark Miasma, it did seem like the most offensive primary of the bunch. My main is a /Storm Corruptor, so I really wanted to avoid doing the same thing again (Despite the fact I absolutely love Storm). I've gotten pretty adept at managing Debuffing as well, more contributing to my choice.
The big question remains whether or not I'll be able to kick out decent damage, which I guess I can only answer that myself. I will miss Scourge no doubt (And Vigilance just plain sucks...Sorry, no other way to put it). I think I'm going to roll up a Sonic/Mental Blaster, my other choice, and test drive him.
In all honesty, I was pretty enthusiastic about Radiation Blast because it fits my concept so well (Ghostbusters-style Ectoplasm, character name is "Ectofreak"), but the idea of having poor offense does not fit the concept. Honestly, he'd probably be better suited as a Blapper, given the inherant lunacy of the style. If Blasters had Radiation Blast...Well, I'd be all set.
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
I think I'm in the same boat. I love Corruptors and my AR/Dark is a beast. Dark/Archery was the closest thing I could think of blueside, so I went for that. Actually I also went Dark/Rad but Archery seems more interesting so I haven't played the other much.
Sadly, the advice about Vet powers is quite solid. It is VERY nice to have -def, even the little bit I had in Burst on the AR corr was enough to enable vet attacks at a reasonable hit rate once the Beginner's Luck newbie acc bonus faded away. I'm liking Archery, but I'm missing that -def.
I'll probably stick with it for awhile, but when Going Rogue hits, I'm more likely just to roll up a Pistols/Dark and bring it over to blueside.
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
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Well, I tried the Sonic/Mental Blaster and...I wasn't even level 3 before I missed the Defender. I was in the red all the time, and the damage wasn't all that fantastic. To top it off, Sonic/Mental just didn't appeal appearance/sound effect-wise. Green death beams are way cooler. Yes, I am dedicated to concept.
I'll probably re-roll him when Rogue hits as a Corruptor, but for now I'll stick to this version. Decent damage and high survivability is a nice well-rounded style, but Vigilance is just going to irritate the hell out of me...
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
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... but Vigilance is just going to irritate the hell out of me...
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It probably won't, since you'll never notice it's there.
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... but Vigilance is just going to irritate the hell out of me...
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It probably won't, since you'll never notice it's there.
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This.
Just go in with the idea that the defender has no inherent, and you'll be set. It means absolutly nothing when solo, and you will rarely notice it at all, even in teams.
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Yeah, the "does it solo at a decent rate" varies enormously from person to person with definition of "decent".
I suggest on at least one build taking the AoEs early, and debuff pulling with Darkest Night so you can maximize use of the rad AoEs; thats its one big advantage over other defender blasts. And Darkest Night plus Tar Patch on a defender lets you pull 2-3 spawns together for more efficiency.
Dark/Rad will solo pretty well for a Defender.
One of my main issues with rad Blast for a solo-er is that you dont get a hard control until 28 - with Dark Miasma thats not an issue because you're very safe with your debuffs.
Dark Miasma lacks any kind of accuracy enhancement/Def debuff to get the vet attacks hitting relaibly, and Rad Blast provides just that. So the two sets work very well together, and generally just look cool to boot!
Firing eye lasers from within a dark rolling cloud? CHECK! 
Use the Lady Grey chance for Negative Damage procs and Achilles Hell -Res procs to boost your damage - they can be slotted in all your attacks. Neutrino Bolt should definitely hold both, possibly the new-ish Shield Breaker damage proc as well.
And yeah, try herding up larger groups of -1 con's to start with and then using your AoEs.
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you will rarely notice [vigilance] at all, even in teams.
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I'm curious, at what point do you consider an endurance discount noticable? Example. When I team with masterminds (ITF, usually), I'm almost guaranteed 400% endurance discount multiple times throughout the mission. When you're saying it isn't noticable, are you saying this because no amount of endurance matters to your defenders, or because you don't think (s)he will notice the sudden inability to lose endurance?
Ah.
Well, to be honest, I haven't teamed my Defenders with any Villains. Nor any Plant controllers, for that matter... and I don't think they've been one a team with a Fire that could actually summon Imps... doubtless because I'm leveling my Defenders more through sheer determination than anything else.
So, accepting that I've not been on a team with a huge mass of added teammates - I can't really say I notice the effects of Vig even on teams. Of course, this might be because either I'm doing a good enough job of covering everyone, and my Teammate's life bars aren't dropping badly... or we're wiping, and all the endurance in the world isn't going to help.
I do sometimes froth at the mouth when I read about someone saying they 'never run out of Endurance' on a Defender... while I'm running out of endurance on mine. Even with Stamina and End Reduction slotted.
Of course, by the same token, I will admit to this: I may just not notice it. I have limited time to play during the week, so I don't often put much time into trying to find a team - I want to play, after all, not just stand around. So I end up soloing a lot. And when I do team? I might just be remembering the points where I actually thought about my End bar when playing. If everything's going smoothly, I'm probably not thinking about it, and simply may not notice that my End use is being efficient.
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I may just not notice it.
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I used to not care one way or the other, mostly since I solo more often than team. I got a sonic/sonic defender into the teens who had enough toggles running that he was sitting at 0 net recovery, or just a small amount worse. Any rebuffing or attacking would require blue insps, or for me to turn off toggles. Yet, if so much as one person died (hey, it's the teeens), I could do whatever I wanted and the blue bar would keep increasing.
I don't doubt people can't notice it, but I don't think it's because it's actually useless.
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Yet, if so much as one person died (hey, it's the teeens), I could do whatever I wanted and the blue bar would keep increasing.
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And thus was born the "death slave". 
I notice vigilance quite a bit. When I was leveling up my forcefield defender, I always tried to keep him on big teams. He never ran out of endurance; once I tried soloing, I was confused why I kept running dry until I realized that defiance had been carrying me while teamed.
As for being rewarded for not doing our job, so little life needs to be lost for there to be a noticeable affect that as long as someone is slightly injured, there should be a noticeable difference.
I do agree that having it do nothing solo is kind of uncool. It would be nice if it worked off of your hp too.
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As for being rewarded for not doing our job, so little life needs to be lost for there to be a noticeable affect that as long as someone is slightly injured, there should be a noticeable difference.
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Reasonable statements arguing the merits of Vigilance are heresy! Only hyperbole decrying its horribleness are permitted!
...What can I expect playing a Defender?
I wanted to make a hero for a change, so I rolled together a little concept which became a Dark/Rad Defender. After a little checking, I realized Corruptors can have an identical Rad/Dark build, and since I am well-veresd in the Corruptor gig, I figured I might have a shot at this.
However, I am a soloer. I like fighting, not supporting, and I'm concerned that a Defender isn't going to be up to the level I enjoy. To be fair, I was debating on a Sonic/Mental Blaster instead, but Radiation Blast is just so darn nifty I wanted to try it.
So, can a Defender dish out Corruptor-level offense, or should I scrap the idea and roll a Blaster instead?
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.